


The Black Library

by Rokesmith



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-03-21 03:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3675315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rokesmith/pseuds/Rokesmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years after the war, an unusual request from Draco Malfoy starts Harry, Ron and Hermione on the case of a wizard obsessed with the past. But the stakes rise and the investigation becomes a race against time as long buried secrets threaten to come to light.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Draco Malfoy’s Request

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Harry Potter is property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury Publishing. This fanfic was written for fun not profit. 
> 
> Author’s Note: This story came as a result of a late-developing interest in Harry Potter (I did read the books when I was younger but it honestly didn’t make much of an impact at the time) spawning various small thoughts about how things that weren’t addressed in the books might work. These ideas multiplied, stuck together, evolved into a plot and then grew and grew until I was left with no choice but to actually write down the enormous story that had developed. Hopefully the result will speak for itself.

Ron Weasley dodged the Impediment Jinx, swept his wand around and riposted with a Blinding Curse that hit his opponent with enough force to knock them back a step. He sprang forward, smashed aside a Stunning spell and grinned savagely.

“Is that the best you can do?”

The next thing he knew, he was hanging upside down by one ankle, robes falling in his eyes. He flailed wildly, trying to aim his wand, and realised he wasn’t holding it anymore. 

He hit the ground with a heavy thud and rolled over onto his back. Harry Potter, a wand in each hand, looked down at him. 

“You git,” Ron growled. 

Harry grinned. “Language, Ron. We have an audience.” 

Ron scrambled to his feet and looked around. Standing by the door of the gym were the half a dozen trainee Aurors whose mentors weren’t on World Cup duty that day. Neither Harry nor Ron were surprised. Even after seven years, it was hard for Harry to do anything without attracting a crowd. 

That tendency was the reason that the pair were passing the time in the Auror gym that afternoon rather than something more interesting. It had come down from on high that the Ministry’s loan of Aurors to the overstretched Dublin department for Ireland’s hosting of the Quidditch World Cup that year was specifically to show the rest of the wizarding world that the department had fully recovered from the war and its aftershocks. It had also been decided that the presence of two of the war’s most famous faces – even in their professional capacity as Aurors and Quidditch fans – was likely to cause far more problems than it solved. And so they stayed at the Ministry, passing the time catching up on paperwork, speculating on who would win the Cup this year and providing their equally bored juniors with entertainment as they threw DA-level spells at each other. 

“Any questions?” Ron asked cheerfully. 

The trainees whispered for a moment and then one of them cautiously raised his hand. “Auror Potter… why did you use a levitation spell?” 

“Well, why do you think I did?” Harry said.

More whispering, and then a dark haired girl stepped forward. “Was it because Auror Weasley wasn’t expecting it?” 

“Exactly,” Harry told her. “You’ve all had your training in curses and counter-curses. They’re important, but they aren’t the only spells you know. But a spell – any spell – your opponent isn’t ready for can make all the difference.” 

“Plus,” Ron added. “You’d be amazed what I can do with a levitation spell.” 

“They all know the troll story, Ron,” Harry said wearily. 

“Can you really do that?” one of the other trainees asked. “Win a fight like that?”

“What was the first thing you were taught in combat training?” 

“This is not a school duel,” the group chorused, “there are no rules.” 

Ron grinned. “Okay, who wants me to prove it? I know one spell that’s guaranteed to defeat the great Harry Potter no matter who you are.”

A ripple went through the group, but Harry just laughed. “No, you don’t.” 

“Oh yes I do. Give me my wand back and I’ll prove it.” 

Harry grinned and handed it over. “I can’t wait to see this, Ron. I’m shaking with fear.”

“You should be,” Ron responded. “Even Riddle himself wasn’t smart enough to think of this one.” 

Ron stepped back into the duelling circle. Harry backed away and stood with his arms by his side, still smiling. The trainees fell silent. 

“Ready?”

“Just get on with it, Ron.” 

Ron cleared his throat, glanced over at the trainees, grinned, pointed his wand at his best friend’s face and yelled, “Accio glasses!”

There was a rush of air and Harry’s famous spectacles flew off his nose and sailed across the room. Ron caught them and held them triumphantly over his head like a trophy. After an instant of trying to restrain themselves, the trainees burst out laughing, a few of even clapping. They were joined by Harry himself, who walked cautiously across the duelling circle, hand held out in front of him, towards the long, red-topped blur he assumed was Ron. The blur took a bow and then handed Harry back the glasses. 

“You git,” Harry muttered, slipping them back on.

“Merlin, I wish I’d thought of that while we were at school.” 

Harry shook his head and turned back to the crowd. “Okay, show’s over. Come back next week and watch as I completely incapacitate the famous Auror Weasley by Summoning his wife.” 

Ron gave him a horrified look. The trainees started laughing again and left the gym talking amongst themselves. Once they were gone, Ron aimed a swipe at Harry’s head, but his more agile friend dodged as they both headed towards the changing rooms. 

They arrived back in the Auror office ten minutes later, but hadn’t even made it to their cubicles when Auror Genevieve DuPont – an unnervingly tiny woman on secondment from the Paris Ministry – rushed over to them. “Ron, I have a message from your wife. She would like you and Harry to come to the archives office at five to see her.”

“Did she say why?” Ron asked, a note of panic in his voice.

“She said she’d explain in person.” 

She hurried away, leaving Ron and Harry to walk back their cubicles. 

“Look, Ron,” Harry said, “it can’t be anything serious. If it was, Hermione wouldn’t have waited till five. She’d have sat on your desk and refused to move till someone went and got you from the gym.” 

Ron nodded. “Yeah. Right. Thanks Harry.” He relaxed. “What d’you reckon she wants then?”

Harry shrugged. “Dunno. I guess we’ll find out at five.” 

***

The reason for Hermione’s message came from her three p.m. appointment. Just before three that afternoon she had been sitting in her cramped office in the archive bureau of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. As the department’s new Junior Assistant to the Archivist (a title that made her the bureau’s second in command since there was no Archivist and hadn’t been for a hundred years), her job mainly involved processing requests for withdrawals from its seemingly endless archives. In this case, the journals of Kingsley Shacklebolt from his days as an Auror for the official biography to be published when he formally stepped down as Minister for Magic at the end of the following year. 

She was distracted from her analysis of the thirty-item list – and pondering which version of the hunt for Sirius Black was going to make it into the biography – by a tap on her office door. Sam Samson, the bureau’s apparently un-aging secretary, stuck his head into the office. 

“Hermione… your three o’clock appointment’s here.” 

Hermione double-checked the enchanted calendar on her desk and nodded. “Astoria Greengrass? Can you bring her in?”

“Sure.” Sam nodded and gave her an odd smile. “They don’t look much like an Astoria, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hello, Granger.” 

Hermione’s head snapped up. Sam was right. Her visitor didn’t look like an Astoria. He looked like a Draco. 

“Malfoy?”

Draco Malfoy gave her a familiar, arrogant smile, as though he expected her to be honoured to receive him. He sauntered across the room to her desk, his cane clicking on the floor. Then, as soon as Sam closed the door, Malfoy did something she would never have expected. He held out his hand.

Hermione watched him carefully, almost suspecting a trick, as she got to her feet and shook his hand. As she did so, she saw his eyes drop to the bulge in her robes. For a second, an expression she’d never seen before flickered across Malfoy’s face and then he adopted his familiar sneer. 

“I ask you, Granger, does the world really need more Weasleys?” 

Hermione resisted the urge to snap back and instead said, “Please, sit down, Malfoy. Can I help you?”

Malfoy wordlessly slipped into the other chair. As Hermione sat back down, he drew a sheet of parchment from his robes and carelessly tossed it onto the desk. 

“I’ve come to collect some property from the Auror vault,” he said. “I was told you were the person to ask about that.”

“I am,” Hermione replied. “What do you want?”

“It’s all on the list.”

She scanned the parchment. It was a simple list of five codes that she recognised as identifying items stored after confiscation by the Aurors. 

“What do you want these for?” she asked.

“I don’t have to tell you that,” Malfoy responded. “Under the Amnesty Act I’m allowed to reclaim anything those oafs took that’s been proven not to contain any Dark magic.”

“I know that,” Hermione snapped.

“Well, if you must know, Granger, they belonged to my mother. They’re family heirlooms and she’d like them back.” 

Hermione took a slow breath and forced herself to treat Malfoy like any other petitioner. “Certainly, Mister Malfoy. I’ll have to process your request to make sure the articles are harmless and then have them collected from the vault. You should receive an owl in three to seven days with an update.”

“Sooner rather than later, Granger,” Malfoy said, and stood. 

“Have a nice day, Malfoy.”

When he was gone, Hermione finally let herself shiver. It was strange, she thought, that while she had largely managed to deal with his involvement with the Death Eaters, she still couldn’t look at him without seeing the cruel bully who’d called her a Mudblood, insulted Harry’s family and made up a song to destroy Ron’s fragile self-esteem. 

Hermione tore her thoughts away from her school days and looked down at her desk. Kingsley’s biography, she decided, could wait a little while. She picked up Malfoy’s parchment, got to her feet and left her office, glancing at the clock as she did so.

“Sam,” she said. “Could you go down to the Auror offices and ask Ron and Harry if they could meet me at five? If anyone needs me, I’ll be down in the index room.” 

***

“He’s up to something,” Ron said.

It was an uncomfortably muggy July day and they were sitting in a small café near the Ministry, having agreed it was better to discuss this outside rather than anywhere they could be easily overheard. As it was, the rush hour traffic was more than capable of swallowing their conversation as long as they kept their voices down. 

Harry shrugged. “Maybe.”

“He’s Malfoy, of course he is,” Ron responded. “You should just tell him to sod off, Hermione.” 

“I can’t,” Hermione responded. “That’s the trouble. I checked and double checked the items on the list he gave me. After they were confiscated, they were examined half a dozen times. You tested one of them yourself, Ron. And they’re harmless.”

“Well, we did take pretty much everything that wasn’t nailed down,” Harry muttered. 

Hermione sipped her orange juice. “Exactly. And they let you. They never raised a single protest with anything the Ministry did after the war. I can’t withhold this request simply because we didn’t get on at school.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Ron said angrily. “He tried to kill us.”

“And he lived for two years without a wand as punishment,” Hermione responded. “It would have been longer if Harry hadn’t defended him. I can’t find a single reason not to give him what he’s asking for, and believe me, I’ve looked.”

“But why’s he asking now?” Ron demanded. “He’s had years. Why now?”

Harry put his Butterbeer down on the table hard enough for them to both look at him. “Okay. What exactly does he want, Hermione?”

Hermione glanced at the notes she’d scribbled next to Malfoy’s index codes. “A necklace, a book of poetry, a letter opener, a signet ring and a clock. He said they belonged to his mother.” 

“Always was a mummy’s boy,” Ron snorted. 

“Glass houses, Ron,” Harry said. 

Ron glared at his friend while Hermione hid a smile. “So what do we do?” he asked eventually.

“If he wants it, he can have it,” Harry said. 

“But…”

“But,” Harry interrupted, “the Amnesty Act gives Aurors the right to make anything we return won’t be used for the Dark Arts, doesn’t it, Hermione?”

“Yes.”

Harry smiled. “Then we’ll just be doing our jobs, won’t we? Hermione, how long will it take to clear this request?”

“I’ll have to send it first thing in the morning so… three days. Maybe four.” 

“Then we’ll get to work first thing as well.” Harry said, and then pulled out his watch. “Sorry, I’ve got to go. Got to pick up James from your mum’s.”

“Can’t wait to hear Ginny’s commentary on the match tonight.” Ron grinned.

“Yes, because you’d never listen to a World Cup game otherwise,” Hermione said. 

Harry left them to it. He wasn’t sure they noticed him leave. He strolled away towards somewhere secluded he could Apparate, wondering how long it was going to take to separate James from his grandmother. 

***

Harry arrived in the office the next morning just in time to catch the closing stages of an argument that sounded like it had been going for some time. Ron, captain of Team The-Russians-Are-Cheating-Bastards-And-You-Know-It, was looming over Clementine Rook, beater for Team It’s-A-Perfectly-Legitimate-Tactic. The game seemed to have split the office almost down the middle, and while Harry did think that the Russian trick of flying directly in front of bludgers so the English players couldn’t see them coming was worthy of the worst days of Marcus Flint’s Slytherin team, he had to admit it was not actually against any rule he knew. He wasn’t going to admit that in a public place, though. He’d gotten enough grief from Ginny the night before after she’d stormed out of the fireplace, ranting about how she was expected to sound even remotely neutral in the face of such awful sportsmanship. 

Instead, he chose to sidestep the discussion entirely, sit down at his desk and re-read a copy of the Amnesty Act. After two minutes of inspecting the section relevant to the return of confiscated items, he looked up, suddenly aware the office had fallen silent. Gawain Robards, Chief Auror, was standing in the doorway with his arms folded, watching the argument.

“Weasley!” he barked. “Potter!”

“Sir?” Ron seemed to shrink. 

“Sir?” Harry said at almost the same time, standing up.

Robards blinked and turned around. He’d obviously been expecting Harry to be one of the row’s leading players rather than a spectator. 

“Could I see you two in my office?” Robards said eventually. “And the rest of you can debate the game all you like over lunch.” 

Harry and Ron followed Robards into his office, leaving an awkward chorus of affirmatives behind them. Once inside he stood silently behind his desk, watching them as though he was waiting for them to confess to something. It was a tactic that worked as well on his subordinates as it did on suspects. Unfortunately for him, Ron and Harry had always been immune to it; they’d had far too much experience of this at school. 

Eventually, Robards admitted defeat and gave them permission to sit. “I received an owl this morning. At home. First thing, in fact. From the young Mr Malfoy.” 

He paused and waited for a reaction. Neither Harry nor Ron gave him one. They’d never dare tell him, but compared to Professor Snape, Robards was an amateur. 

“He said, in brief, that he regretted the necessity of his path crossing yours again, but that he was making a legitimate request under the Amnesty Act and that he sincerely hoped that no one involved would let schoolboy rivalries interfere with their professionalism or the fine reputation of the Ministry. My first question, gentlemen, is this: what in Merlin’s name is he talking about?”

Finally, Ron and Harry shared a glance. Harry went first, and they took turns recounting Hermione’s story of Malfoy’s request. Robards listened in a stony silence. 

“What do you think, then?” he asked when they’d finished. 

“I think he’s up to something!” Ron burst out. “Harry doesn’t agree but this is Malfoy, for Merlin’s sake!”

“Actually…” Harry said quietly. 

“Oh, come to your senses, have you?” Ron asked.

Robards looked at him carefully. “What do you think, Potter?”

Harry pushed back his glasses. “It’s too obvious, sir. I’ve seen Malfoy being sneaky, and he’s very good at it. Why didn’t he just write to the archives like everyone else? Or… get his mother to do it, since it’s her property he seems to want? But he doesn’t do that. He makes an appointment with Hermione under a woman’s name, then walks straight into the Ministry and tells her that she has to get him this stuff as soon as possible and it’s none of her business why he wants it. And then, before she’s even had a chance to submit the request, he writes to you, sir, in person to make sure that Ron and I don’t interfere with it.” 

“But Hermione spent half last night telling me there’s nothing we can do even if we wanted to,” Ron grumbled. “And she’s right. I checked.” 

“Exactly,” Harry said. “So why’s he going to all this trouble? He’d be stupid not to realise that all it would do was make us more suspicious.”

“It’s like one of those old shows isn’t it?” Ron muttered. “The last thing you want to do with a detective is tell him there’s nothing to investigate. It’ll only make him try harder.”

Robards gave him a baffled look. Harry just snorted.

“You’ve been spending too much time with your mother-in-law, Ron.” 

“However you make the point, Weasley, I think you and Potter are right. If Mr Malfoy wants attention, we’ll be sure he gets it.”

Ron grinned. “Yes, sir!” 

“Pay him a visit. Personally assure him that you will do nothing at all to obstruct the recovery of his rightful property. See how he reacts. Find out whatever you can.” 

He looked across the table again. The temperature in the room seemed to have plummeted. Ron’s grin had vanished. Behind his glasses, Harry’s green eyes had gone cold. 

“Visit him at home, sir?” Harry said eventually.

Robards looked from one to the other. “I am aware,” he said solemnly, “of what… you experienced at Malfoy Manor during the war. If you would rather not relive those memories, I can ask someone else.” 

“No, sir,” Ron said, through gritted teeth. “That won’t be necessary. It’ll be our pleasure.”

***

In the bright summer sunlight, Malfoy Manor almost looked like a nice place to live. The hedges on either side of the drive up to the house were perfectly trimmed and the lawn beyond them was a cool, peaceful green that seemed to invite picnics and long walks. The house itself, on the other hand, looked too squat and solid to be truly pleasant to look at, and it had a strange chill to it, like it was a museum rather than somewhere anyone actually lived. 

Harry rapped on the gates with his wand and they obediently opened. As he walked down the drive he reflected that the last time either of them had been there they’d been backed up by half the department. The raid had swept through the house with the force of a hurricane and the Aurors – many of whom had lost friends or family during the war – had taken a delight in confiscating anything they could justify taking and smashing most of the things they couldn’t. At the time, Harry hadn’t thought twice about it, but approaching the house again after all this time he felt a twinge of guilt. 

Ron, he knew, wasn’t thinking any of this. Ron would be thinking about anything at all if it meant his mind didn’t settle on the first time they’d come to this place. 

Finally, the walk to the front door ended. Harry looked at Ron, who wasn’t moving, then gently tapped the wood. Three heavy thuds rang out, and they waited. A moment passed, and Harry started wondering if he should knock again. Then, without a sound, the door opened. 

“Potter,” Malfoy hissed. “Weasley. I should have known. What do you want?”

Harry managed to keep his face blank. “We have a message from Chief Auror Robards.”

“Well, it’s good to know where you stand in the department. Chief Auror, Aurors, owls, and then you two.”

“Can we come in?” Ron growled. 

“If you must,” Malfoy said. “Try not to touch anything. We aren’t allowed to keep a house elf anymore and I don’t want to waste any time cleaning your stench off my family’s valuable possessions.” 

They followed him into the hall. The carpets under their feet were new, emerald green with serpentine patterns of silver weaving in amongst patterns of stars. Pictures lined the walls, generations of Malfoys watching them with cold eyes and thin lips. 

For an unpleasant moment, Harry thought Draco was leading them to the drawing room, but he turned aside at the last minute and opened a smaller door next to it.

“Draco, who is it?”

They turned, half way through the door, to look at the woman standing on the staircase. She was their age, strawberry-blonde hair falling in well maintained curls around her face and watching them with cool grey eyes. Then they registered the fact that her hands were resting on top of belly that was several months more swollen than Hermione’s. 

“It’s just the Aurors, Astoria,” Malfoy said. “Go back upstairs. Please.”

The last word had an unfamiliar note of tenderness in it. But Harry barely had time to glance over at Ron, trying to decide how to process this new information, before they were inside the room and the door closed behind them. It was a study, dominated by an ancient, heavy desk made from a dark wood. The window behind the desk looked out onto a patch of the garden prowled by the animals from the topiary. The walls were lined with cabinets of books and scrolls, all of them precisely ordered and labelled. There was also, somewhat curiously, an upright piano against the wall by the door. As they passed it, Malfoy reached out and tapped one of the keys and the piano began to play a quiet, gentle tune that neither of his guests recognised. 

A moment passed, filled only by the music from the piano, and then Malfoy spoke. “I am Draco Lucius Malfoy. At the beginning of our sixth year I put Potter in a Body-Bind Curse after he snuck into our carriage. I poisoned Weasley on his birthday because he drank the mead I’d given to Professor Slughorn. Then, during the final battle, you saved my life twice and punched me in the face.” 

What felt like hours passed in silence.

“Yeah,” Ron said slowly. “And? We didn’t come all this way to talk about school.” 

“I wanted to make sure you two were sure it was me,” Malfoy told them.

“Why wouldn’t we be?” Harry asked. 

Malfoy looked from one to the other, wincing as if he found making eye contact with his two old rivals physically painful. Then he said, “I need your help.”


	2. Family Matters

Once upon a time, they would have laughed, or asked him if he was joking, or told him told him to pull the other one. But ‘once upon a time’ was a long time ago. Today, Aurors Potter and Weasley stood in the private study of Draco Malfoy and watched his arrogant façade fade away, leaving a man with fear in his eyes asking them for help. 

A moment passed, then Malfoy turned away and flipped open a cabinet to reveal a bottle of aged firewhiskey and several glasses. “Drink?” he asked. 

Ron and Harry looked at each other. “Err… not while we’re on duty,” Harry said eventually. 

“Suit yourself,” Malfoy responded.

He poured himself half a glass, tapped it with his wand, and sat down. When Harry and Ron remained standing, he made an impatient gesture to the two chairs which slid silently across the floor and settled behind them. They sat. 

“Alright, Malfoy,” Ron said. “You’ve got our attention. What the hell is this about?” 

“Before I do,” Malfoy began. “For my own satisfaction, which one of you noticed my subtle hints? Or did Granger have to put it together for you?” 

“We worked it out all by ourselves,” Ron told him. “They don’t let idiots join the Aurors.” 

“We’ll see.” Malfoy took a sip of his drink. “A month ago, I was visited by a wizard called Pliny Ventura. He claimed to be an antiquarian and said he was interested in buying several rare objects he had heard were in my family’s possession.”

“The things on the list you gave Hermione.”

“Yes. Since the war, many of my father’s… former friends have been forced to sell some of their valuables to maintain their lifestyles. However, neither I nor my father would ever stoop to something so shameful.” 

“Of course not,” Harry said.

Malfoy ignored him. “In any case, it was never necessary. We survived those days with my family’s collection intact, and I intend to keep it that way. Not even an offer of two thousand galleons per item was enough to change my mind.”

“Two thousand each?” Ron repeated. “He offered you ten thousand galleons and you showed him the door?” 

“Of course,” Malfoy spat. “Some things are more important than money. But I wouldn’t expect a Weasley to know that.” 

Ron failed to react, so Harry asked, “Then what happened?”

“I told him I wasn’t interested, and in any case the Aurors had taken everything he wanted. Then, a week later, he sent an owl saying he understood this was the case, but in order to compensate me for my inconvenience, the offer was now twenty thousand. I declined.” 

“Wouldn’t want to admit a Malfoy can be bought,” Ron muttered. 

“Exactly,” Draco said. “Then, a week later, these arrived by anonymous owl.”

He drew a small envelope from the desk drawer and tossed its contents onto the desk as if they were red hot. Harry and Ron picked them up. They were photographs, half a dozen of them. Astoria Malfoy in the Leaky Caldron talking her sister. Astoria Malfoy examining maternity robes. Astoria Malfoy outside the Daigon Alley owl post office. 

“The same day,” Malfoy almost whispered, “I had another owl from Ventura, asking if I’d reconsider his offer.” 

Harry sat quietly for a moment while Ron poured over the photos. “You should come to the Auror Office and make a formal statement,” he said.

Malfoy laughed. “Please, Potter. Everyone knows that half the department is at the World Cup. There’s nothing to connect Ventura with those photos. And if they can watch Astoria then they can watch me.” 

“So,” Harry said carefully, “you’re formally refusing the official help of Auror Office.”

Malfoy caught his tone. Equally carefully, he said, “I am.” 

“Then there will be no official investigation into this case.”

“Unofficially,” Ron added, shoving the pictures back into the envelope, “we’ll do our jobs. We’ll need to keep these photos, and we’ll need anything you’ve got on Pliny Ventura. And let us know if he gets in touch again. We’ll give you an address to send your owls to, and they’ll make sure we get them. If it’s an emergency, floo Hermione at the archives.” 

While Harry wrote down the address of the Auror drop-box, Malfoy took a business card out of his desk. Ron took the card and watched as it shifted between the name and address of Ventura’s shop and a picture of the man himself. Early fifties, well built, and with a cheerful, fatherly face. The image smiled up at Ron; Ron turned it over and dropped it into the envelope. 

“If we need to get in touch,” Harry told Malfoy, “we’ll use a DMLE owl.”

“Thank you,” Malfoy said. “And… good luck.”

Harry nodded. He and Ron were past the point where shaking hands with Malfoy seemed strange. They left the house and Apparated back to the Ministry without a word. There was work to be done. 

***

James Sirius Potter waddled awkwardly across the sitting room, stumbling towards the wireless and the sound of his mother’s voice. Harry and Ron took turns watching him out of the corner of their eyes while Hermione spread a collection of files across the table. 

“What position d’you reckon he’ll play?” Ron asked.

Harry shrugged. “Isn’t it a bit early for that?”

“You’re never too young to love Quidditch, mate,” Ron replied. “I was gonna start playing the World Cup games to our kid, but Hermione won’t stay still long enough.”

“I refuse to allow you to indoctrinate our child before it’s even born,” Hermione said, without looking up. 

“And what about you reading out loud?” Ron responded. “I swear, the kid’s first words are going to be ‘Hogwarts: A History Chapter One’.” 

The argument was interrupted by a gentle thump from the far side of the room as James dropped down in front of the radio, Ginny’s voice coming out of it more forceful than ever. 

“I don’t know what the French team thought they were doing tonight. Their chasers couldn’t make up their mind what formations they were flying in, the beaters were just aiming at whoever was nearest and weren’t opening any holes, the keeper was so busy showing off that she missed a goal my brother could have saved…”

“Hey!” Ron shouted at the radio.

“… and the seeker was so spent so much time yelling at everyone he didn’t have time to look for the snitch, which was probably a mercy. What do you think, Viktor?”

Hermione looked up at the sound of the familiar name. There was a short pause and then a rough, heavily-accented voice growled, “No teamwork.” 

Ron and Harry both laughed. Hermione gave them a careful look. “He never mentioned that,” she murmured. 

“Well, you don’t like Quidditch, do you?” Ron replied. “Probably thought you wouldn’t be listening.” 

As the discussion of the night’s match became more in-depth, Harry scooped up his son and put him on his knee as Hermione finished arranging the papers. 

“After you sent me the memo,” she began, “I went down to the archives and got the files on everything that Mr Ventura asked Malfoy for. This is everything your department has on them. Descriptions, pictures, inspections, everything. At least Kingsley insisted the confiscations were thoroughly documented.” 

The two men shared a grimace. The sporadic raids in the summer following Voldemort’s fall had been a lot less thrilling than the press had made them out to be. Two hours of mild tension followed by days of paperwork. 

Harry picked up the five photos and spread them out. “None of them look like they’re worth four thousand galleons.” 

The necklace might have been; it was a string of opals held together by an elaborate clasp. The clock was also ornate; scrollwork and Latin decorating a face that showed the time, the date and the phases of the moon. The book was a simple leather-bound volume with nothing visible on the cover beyond a faint imprint. The letter opener was silver and designed in imitation of a sword. The signet ring was by far the least impressive: scratched and battered through years of use, its design barely visible anymore. 

“No,” Hermione agreed. “They don’t.” 

Harry listened to his son’s cheerful gurgles as he scanned the reports of the inspections. The Auror department had thrown the best tests it had at every single one of the confiscated items. He handed James off to Hermione while he and Ron ran down the lists of examinations, looking for any sign something had been missed that might indicate the items could be a Dark artefact. But, after checking and double checking, they were forced to agree nothing had been overlooked. 

“Well,” Hermione said thoughtfully, trying to gently disentangle James’ fingers from her hair, “if they’re not connected to the Dark Arts, what else could they be? What did you find out about Pliny Ventura?” 

“Not a lot,” Ron replied. “As far as anyone at the office knows, he’s just a bloke who sells wizard antiques and has a shop on Charing Cross Road. I think it’s where Bill and Fleur got our speaking clock from.” 

Hermione scowled. Harry hid a smile behind one of the files. He had a lot of entertaining memories of his friends’ speaking clock. The trick, it turned out, was making it shut up. 

“Anyway,” Ron continued quickly. “He’s never been in trouble with the office. Robards had never heard of him and the inspection we did after the war didn’t turn up anything.” 

“Our records say much the same,” Hermione agreed, offering James a cushion to try and keep his hands occupied. “Which doesn’t make any sense. Ron, I’m sorry, can you take him? He won’t leave my hair alone.” 

As James was passed to his uncle, something caught Harry’s eye on the report he’d been reading. “Family crest,” he muttered.

“What is it?” Ron asked.

Harry said nothing for a moment. He pulled over each one of the files and read the top lines one after another. “We were looking at the pictures,” he said eventually. “We should have been looking at the descriptions. Look… ‘necklace, silver, nine opal stones, clasp with family crest’. And the letter opener ‘family crest on hilt’. The book’s got a crest on its cover, the clock’s got one and the ring’s obviously got one. That’s what they’ve all got in common.” 

“Doesn’t say whose family it is, though,” Ron pointed out.

“It doesn’t have to,” Harry responded.

He snatched up the photograph of the battered ring and held it out to his friends. The picture rotated for a moment until it gave them all a clear view of the crest on the front of the ring. Harry watched their eyes widen in recognition and then flicker to the image above the mirror on the wall, taking in the greyhounds, the sword, the white chevron and the five-pointed stars.

The crest of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. 

“Well…” Ron said hesitantly, “he did say they belonged to his mum.” 

“But that can’t be a coincidence, can it?” Harry asked. “The only thing this stuff has in common is that it’s got the Black crest on it.”

Hermione nodded. “I think you’re right, Harry. It can’t be a coincidence. But what does it mean?”

They fell silent, unable to answer her. In the background, Ginny angrily described the botched Wronski Feint that had prolonged the game by twenty minutes. Wearing an expression of deep thought, like he was contemplating a difficult chess move, Ron produced his wand, pointed it at his face and produced a particularly fine toothbrush moustache. James made an indecipherable sound and clapped in amusement. Over the next five minutes, without apparently losing too much attention from the papers in front of him, Ron went through a selection of increasingly absurd facial hair for his nephew’s amusement, culminating in a walrus moustache that caused Hermione to finally release the snort of laughter she’d been trying to hold in. 

Ron grinned down at James. “Now what do you say we give your Auntie Hermione one? I think she’d look great with a full beard.” 

Hermione’s hands flew to her face. “Don’t you dare,” she hissed between her fingers. 

Ron shrugged and looked over at Harry. “I’ve been thinking…” he said.

“Put one of those on my son and Ginny will kill you,” Harry responded.

Ron shook his head. “No, not about that. About these. What if Ventura doesn’t want all of them? What if he just wants one? And he’s just asking for all five to stop Malfoy getting suspicious or working out what he’s up to or something.”

“I suppose it’s possible,” Harry agreed. “So which one’s the odd one out?”

“We tested everything, right? And it was all just boring stuff. No magic at all. Except… except for the book.”

“The poetry book?” Hermione repeated. “Why was that magical?”

“Well, when we found it, it was blank. See?” Ron indicated the relevant section of the report. “We thought it might have something Dark in it so we did a couple of revealing spells but nothing happened. Then someone took it to Kingsley and he did one of Moody’s old spells on it and it worked, but all that showed up was a load of Muggle poetry by some bloke called Shelley.” 

“So what’s your point?” Harry asked.

“Well, the Blacks were pure-blood supremacists weren’t they? They hated Muggles. So why would one of them keep a Muggle poetry book?” 

Hermione shrugged. “Well, maybe one of them secretly liked Shelley’s poems. Sirius liked motorbikes, after all. And given what the family was like, they’d have every reason to conceal it so it couldn’t be found by accident.” 

“But a blank book would just make people suspicious,” Harry pointed out. “Especially if you need a really powerful revealing spell to make it show anything.”

“There are easier ways to hide something,” Hermione admitted. 

“I reckon there’s something hidden in that book,” Ron said firmly. “It must be like the Marauder’s Map. It shows these poems if anyone tries to use a revealing spell so no one looks too hard.” 

“Okay…” Harry muttered, reclaiming his son. “It’s the only theory we’ve got. If it’s true, we need to figure out what the book really says and how Ventura found out about it.”

“Whatever it is,” Ron added. “He’s willing to pay twenty thousand galleons and risk Azkaban to get his hands on it.” 

“And I think he got into our archives,” Harry said.

“What?” Hermione exclaimed. 

James squirmed in Harry’s lap and Harry had to take a moment to placate him before answering. “Malfoy told him he couldn’t sell these things because we had them. A week later, Ventura comes back and says he knows that. He would have had to confirm it, and the only way he could have done that is if he got into the archive. Or at least the index.”

“Well then,” Hermione said, bristling, “you two find out about that book. I am going to see how easy it is to find something in the archives without permission.” 

“Who are we going to ask about the book?” Ron asked Harry.

“Narcissa,” Harry replied. “I’ll floo Malfoy tonight and arrange a meeting. You’ll have to go. Find out what she knows about all this stuff, but especially the book.” 

“How do you know she’ll cooperate?” 

Harry ran a hand through his son’s hair and felt the tiny body relax against his own. “The same reason Malfoy asked us. There’s nothing more important than family.” 

***

The next morning, Ron did his best to stifle a yawn as he approached the small cafe in Urchfont, Wiltshire. Narcissa Malfoy was already waiting for him, sipping a cup of coffee and flipping through the early edition of the Prophet. She looked far too regal for half past seven in the morning, but Ron had been expecting nothing less. 

She looked up over her paper and for an instant Ron saw the familiar expression of distain flit across her face before she suppressed it and gestured to the chair opposite her. “Auror Weasley. Thank you for meeting me so early. Sit down.” 

“Mrs Malfoy.”

Narcissa folded up her paper. “Draco explained the situation to me from the start. Now he says you need to ask me some questions. How can I help?” 

Ron laid the five pictures on the table like he expected them to explode. “These are the things that Ventura wants. They’ve all got the Black crest on them. Malfoy said they were yours.” 

“Yes, they were,” Narcissa said calmly. “The necklace was the only one I liked. It belonged to my aunt Walburga, though I’ve no idea where she got it from. Great Aunt Beliva, perhaps. The clock was Andromeda’s. After… after she married, she said that since we wanted nothing to do with her, she wanted nothing of ours. She wouldn’t give it to… to Bella, so she said I should have it. The ring, the book and the letter opener were all my father’s, though I only ever saw him with the ring, and then only at family occasions.”

“Why?” Ron asked.

Narcissa shrugged. “He wanted to show it off. He insisted it belonged to his great grandfather. It wouldn’t surprise me if it did.” 

Ron swallowed. “Your… er… great-great grandfather?” 

“Phineas Nigellus Black,” Narcissa said, her expression twisting again. “I assume even you have heard of him.”

“Yeah.” Ron nodded. “Last Slytherin headmaster of Hogwarts before Snape, right?”

Narcissa sighed. “Amongst his many accomplishments. He devised the current Black crest. My grandfather told me he was obsessed with it. He would put it on anything he wanted to mark as his. So no one would doubt the importance of the Blacks. In fact… all five of these objects have the crest? Then it wouldn’t surprise me if they were all passed down from him.” 

Ron blinked. “Are you sure?”

“I can’t be certain… but I think he’s the only one of my ancestors who would put his crest on a clock and a book.” 

“About that book…” Ron pushed the relevant photo forward. “Do you know anything special about it?”

Narcissa took the picture and looked at it as she sipped her coffee. “My father’s stories about Phineas Nigellus focussed more on his efforts for blood purity than his academic career. He wrote numerous books and had a formidable library that I imagine was scattered through the family. This may simply be one of them.” 

“So you don’t know why he’d write a book that was blank unless you did a powerful revealing spell and then showed you Muggle poetry?”

“No, Auror Weasley,” Narcissa said, tiling her head, “I have absolutely no idea. I would suggest it was a joke… but I doubt it.” 

“Thank you, Mrs Malfoy,” Ron said.

“If there is anything else you need… do not hesitate to ask,” Narcissa told him. 

Ron nodded. “Yeah… sure. Thanks.” 

He gathered up the photos. Narcissa picked up her newspaper again. Feeling the strangeness of the conversation catch up with him, Ron almost didn’t notice her look up again.

“Oh, Auror Weasley? Draco tells me your wife is expecting a child. Congratulations.” 

Ron tried not to let the shock show on his face. “Thanks,” he said weakly. 

Narcissa nodded, looking almost as surprised at having given the compliment as Ron was to receive it. Then her expression emptied and she went back to the newspaper. Ron turned and walked way, trying to focus enough to Apparate back to the office. 

***

Neville Longbottom nervously pushed open the door of the Hog’s Head and peered inside. After the bright afternoon sunshine, it took his eyes a moment to adjust to the gloom. By the standards of the place, the pub was crowded today; it had five whole customers in it: two at the bar, hoods up despite the heat; an aging witch and wizard glaring at each other over a chess set; and lastly, the reason he was there.

To Neville, Hannah Abbott’s smile lit up the dingy room as she crossed the bar and threw her arms around his neck. She had to stand on tip-toe to kiss his cheek, leaning against him with enough weight to push him back a step. 

“I missed you,” she whispered in his ear. 

Neville opened his mouth to ask a question, but before he could, Hannah pressed a finger over his lips. “I’ve got a surprise for you,” she said, louder this time. 

“Oh?” Neville managed, keenly aware a few of the bar’s patrons were now looking at them with interest.

Hannah’s smile turned coy. “It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you,” she said, then turned her head. “Thanks again, Ab. Make sure we aren’t disturbed.”

Aberforth Dumbledore grunted and went back to pouring a drink for one of the wizards at the bar. Neville barely had time to raise his hand in an ignored greeting before Hannah took his other arm and led him gently but firmly into the back of the pub and up the stairs. The upper floor of the Hog’s Head wasn’t any better than the bar, but Neville hardly noticed as Hannah opened a door that led into a small, cramped guest bedroom and shut it behind them. She leaned back against the door, leaving Neville adrift in the middle of the room, and cast a Silencing spell.

“Hannah, what is going on?” he finally exclaimed. 

“Sorry about that, Neville,” said a voice to his left. “This was her idea.” 

“Yeah,” another disembodied voice added, “I’m sure he’s really cut up that everyone down there thinks Hannah’s dragged him out of work and upstairs for a quickie.” 

“Ron!”

Hannah made a grab for something near the source of the voices. There was a familiar swish of fabric and Harry and Ron appeared. 

“What is going on?” Neville asked weakly. “It was weird enough you flooing me at work and asking me to meet you here and here and not tell anyone, but what was that for?”

“They said they needed a convincing reason for you to come here,” Hannah replied. “So I thought of one.”

“Okay…”

“Neville, we need your help,” Harry said. “We have to get into the castle to see McGonagall. We can’t let anyone find out. We’re not sure it’s safe.” 

“This unofficial then?” Neville asked.

Ron nodded. “Yeah. Officially unofficial.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“It’s an Auror rule, Hannah,” Neville explained. “We… they have to tell the Ministry about all their cases, but if no crime’s actually been reported then it can be treated as an inquiry and Robards won’t report anything till he thinks there’s something to report.” 

“I suppose,” Hannah said, “that if I asked, you couldn’t tell me.” 

Harry nodded. “Sorry.”

“They haven’t told me, either,” Neville added. 

“We’d better get going,” Ron said. 

Hannah shook her head. “Give it another minute, for the alibi.”

“Err… okay.” Neville nodded.

They stood in awkward silence for a moment before Hannah looked up at Ron. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I completely forgot to ask earlier. How’s Hermione?” 

“She’s… she’s fine,” Ron answered. “Definitely showing now. Umm… says the morning sickness has stopped but… she still gets these weird cravings from time to time. And she’s still reading every book on pregnancy she can find.” 

“They didn’t even have to tell me.” Harry smiled. “I tripped over a copy of Magical Maternity and managed to put two and two together.”

“Well, that is Hermione’s solution to everything.” Hannah laughed. “Okay, well, I guess that’s been long enough.”

She straightened up, and with what little space was left in the room, pulled her hair out of its plait. She shook it out and then rubbed her palms against it until it started expanding outwards. Then she looked down at her robes and thoughtfully pulled at them until she looked considerably scruffier. 

Finally, she turned to Harry and Ron. “How do I look, boys?”

Harry stuttered uncertainly, but Ron grinned. “Like Neville’s given you a good seeing-to.” 

“Perfect,” Hannah said. “Now I just need to complete the effect. If could you give us a moment?”

Harry and Ron obediently turned around. When they turned back, Neville looked considerably more dishevelled. He and Hannah were looking at each other with an expression of stunned joy that took Harry back to the Room of Requirement a long, long time ago. 

And as he had done then, he awkwardly interrupted the moment, clearing his throat and muttering, “Sorry, we need to go.” 

Ron and Harry disappeared under the Cloak and followed Neville and Hannah downstairs. Hannah practically skipped across the bar, thanking Aberforth for the loan of the room and getting another disinterested acknowledgement. 

Then she stood in the door, silhouetted against the summer sunlight – conveniently allowing the invisible pair enough time to slip past her – and blew Neville a kiss. “Bye-bye, Neville. I’ll see you again soon.” 

And with a pop, she was gone. Neville stood awkwardly in the bar for a few seconds, this time completely oblivious to the looks he was getting, and then walked out of the pub. 

As he passed the Cloak, he heard an appreciative, “Bloody hell, mate.” 

Harry jabbed Ron in the side. “You’re a married man!” he hissed.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” 

They followed Neville up the path towards the school. Once they were out of the village, Ron closed the distance and hissed, “How come you haven’t proposed yet?”

“I just… haven’t,” Neville responded.

“You can kill a snake with a sword but you can’t ask your girlfriend to marry you? And you were on fire.”

“Yes,” Neville said wearily. “And I was on fire.” 

“Ron, you’re one to talk,” Harry cut in. “Leave him alone or I’ll tell him how you and Hermione got engaged. The whole story.” 

Ron remained silent the rest of the walk to the school. They paused at the Hogsmead gate to allow Harry time to retrieve the Marauder’s Map from his robes and then Neville opened it and led them through. Harry had found himself back on the grounds at least once a year since the battle, but even now walking towards the castle felt like coming home. However, this was the first time he had really been there during the summer holidays and Hogwarts seemed eerily quiet. The feeling wasn’t helped by the emptiness of the map; there were fewer dots on it than Harry could ever remember seeing. 

Eventually, they reached castle’s side entrance and passed into the cool corridors. The halls were all but silent, and they did their best to make sure that only one set of footsteps echoed through the deserted passageways as they made their way to the third floor.

“Just like the good old days, eh mate?” Ron whispered.

“Which good old days were those?” Harry replied. “The ones with the three headed dog, the Basilisk, the escaped convict or the Dark wizards trying to kill us?” 

“Oh yeah…”

A few steps ahead of them, Neville came to a stop in front of the gargoyle which guarded the headmistress’ office. “Montrose,” he said clearly.

The gargoyle slid aside and allowed them up the rotating stairs. At the top Neville knocked on the heavy oak doors and waited, shuffling his feet awkwardly like he was still a pupil. 

“Come in!”

The doors opened. Headmistress McGonagall folded up her copy of Transfiguration Today and stood up from behind her desk. 

“Hello, professor.”

“Neville,” McGonagall said, in a faintly maternal tone, “we are colleagues now. In private, you are allowed to call me ‘Minerva’.” 

“Yes, professor.”

“So what is all this about?”

McGonagall merely sighed when her two former students pulled off the Invisibility Cloak. “Potter… and Weasley. I might have known it was you two.” 

“Sorry about this, professor,” Harry said. “It’s Auror business.” 

“Auror business doesn’t usually require sneaking around the castle under that Cloak,” McGonagall remarked. “Still, old habits die hard, I suppose.” 

“We need to talk to Phineas Black’s portrait,” Harry told her. “In private. If that’s possible.” 

“Oh, very well.” McGonagall sighed again. “Neville will accompany on a brief walk to the library to tell me how Pamona is enjoying her retirement. You have until we get back.” She turned to the wall of portraits behind her. “Phineas! Phineas!”

“What is it?” the portrait in question demanded. 

“These young men need your help. You will give it to them.” 

“After the way they treated me? Absolutely not!”

“He still hasn’t forgiven us for the camping trip,” Ron muttered apologetically. “That’s why we couldn’t use the picture at Harry’s.” 

McGonagall stood up. “Phineas, you will help them as you would help me. Is that clear?”

“Oh, very well.” 

“Thank you.” 

McGonagall left the office with Neville trailing after her. Harry waited till he heard the staircase moving before turning back to the picture. 

“Thank you… umm… Headmaster Black,” Harry said. “We wanted to ask you about a book.”

Ron produced the photograph and held it up. “Narcissa Malfoy says it was probably yours. We were wondering if you could tell us about it.” 

“No you weren’t,” the portrait snapped. 

“We weren’t?”

“No. You wanted me to tell you about my library.”


	3. Shadows and Shade

Ron nearly dropped the photograph. He and Harry looked at each other, then back up at the portrait.

“Your… library?” Harry asked cautiously.

“Yes,” Phineas Black responded. “My library. I was asked about it constantly. So many questions about where it was, what volumes I’d collected, whether they could borrow something.”

“Hang on,” Ron exclaimed. “Malfoy’s mum said he had a library. A big one. But she thought it got spread out through the family.”

“Nonsense,” the portrait responded. “Any Black could deposit books with my collection and borrow them whenever they wished, but never disburse or destroy it.”

“Right.” Harry nodded.

Then Phineas Black’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t come to ask me about my library?”

“Umm… no,” Harry admitted cautiously.

“We just wanted to know about the book,” Ron added.

“Well, it’s the key, of course. What else does one use to find a library?”

“So what’s in the library, then?” Ron asked.

“I see no reason to tell you that,” Black responded. “You wanted to know about the book and I have told you. What does my library have to do with any of this?”

“If it’s the reason someone’s threatening Narcissa Malfoy’s unborn grandchild, maybe everything,” Harry said firmly.

Phineas Black fell silent, weighing his headmaster’s obligations and his loyalty to his descendants against his dislike of his petitioners. Before he could reach a decision one way or the other, a familiar voice drawled, “Tell them, Phineas, or I will.”

Harry and Ron jumped. The portrait just to the right of the desk was now occupied and the two young men found themselves under the cold black gaze of Severus Snape once again.

“Hello, professor,” Harry murmured.

“Potter. Weasley. Now, Phineas, you were about to tell them about your library.”

“Very well, Severus,” Black said. “On your head be it. My library was the finest collection in the world of books on what have since become falsely known as the Dark Arts. It took a lifetime to assemble. When I passed on, it contained nearly ten thousand volumes and I imagine has since been added to by my family.”

“So where is it?” Harry asked.

“Stupid question,” Black responded. “This is still a school, is it not? My library is priceless. It is, of course, Unplottable. The entrance was well hidden and can be located and accessed only with the books.”

“Ten thousand books on the Dark Arts,” Ron breathed. “No wonder he wants it so badly.”

Harry turned to Snape’s portrait. “How did you know about the library, professor?”

“There were clues,” Snape told him. “References to supposedly lost books in his own writings on the Dark Arts. There are also oblique references to the collection in the correspondence kept in the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts library. In short, Potter, a guess, but an educated one. And not one beyond another wizard of sufficient knowledge and intelligence.”

“Thank you, sir,” Harry said, and then turned back to Phineas Black. “And thank you, Headmaster Black.”

“Potter!” Snape snapped.

Harry twisted back to the portrait. “Sir?”

“I see you remain as careless as ever. You have forgotten one vital question.”

Harry looked at Ron, who shrugged. Harry replayed the conversation, wondering what he’d missed, and his eyes widened.

“Headmaster Black… you said ‘books’. Is there more than one? More than one key to the library?”

“Of course there is,” Phineas Nigellus replied. “One for each of my children. But I couldn’t tell you who had them now if I wanted to.”

“Thank you,” Harry said. “Professor, why did you…”

He tailed off, staring at Snape’s portrait. The frame was empty.

“Git,” Ron muttered.

“He did help us,” Harry pointed out.

“I know.” Ron sighed. “Still a git, though.”

The doors behind them opened. McGonagall came through, listening with apparent interest to Neville’s description of ex-Professor Sprout’s greenhouse. Harry and Ron resumed their position in front of her desk as she sat down.

“Did Phineas co-operate?” she asked.

“He… took a bit of persuading,” Harry told her. “Professor Snape helped.”

McGonagall raised an eyebrow. “Indeed? Well, Potter, if you have everything you need, then I hope you won’t object to a favour in return?”

“Of course not, professor. Anything I can do.”

“The favour is from your wife, actually,” McGonagall told him. “We have a young lady on the Gryffindor Qudditch team. The only girl on the team at this point, and that seems unlikely to change this year. It seems to be affecting her confidence, so I thought some encouragement from the famous Ginny Weasley would help her get it back.”

Harry grinned. While she was unquestionably Mrs Ginevra Potter on paper and in her heart, to Quidditch fans his wife would always be Ginny Weasley.

“Absolutely, professor,” he said.

McGonagall switched her gaze to Ron. “And Hermione?”

“Still working hard as ever, professor.” Ron smiled. “The rate she’s going she’ll give birth at her desk. But she’s never been happier. And in eleven years you’ll have another Weasley here to keep young James company.”

McGonagall raised her eyebrow again. “I can hardly wait.”

***

That evening, Ginny was doing her best to remove James’ dinner from his face and wondering aloud how long it would take him to master putting it into his mouth rather than everywhere else. Harry felt a pang of regret about leaving her to it, but she had reminded him repeatedly over dinner that she had hardly seen her son over the last few days and was happy for some time alone, as if she was worried about him forgetting who his mother was.

“He can still hear you on the wireless,” Harry pointed out.

“It’s not the same,” Ginny responded. “Is it James? Even if Mummy is the best commentator in the history of the game.”

Harry placed a hand on her shoulder and looked down into his son’s hazel eyes. “Yes, she is. She’s also one of the best chasers around.”

“And never forget, James,” Ginny whispered, “that she loves you more than Quidditch.”

Husband and wife shared a gentle kiss before Harry went down into the kitchen to check the dishwashing charms were still working and Kreacher hadn’t started cleaning while they weren’t looking. A few swishes of his wand put the clean plates back in the cupboard. When he came back into the dining room, Ginny was levitating several spoons above the table to demonstrate one of her favourite Cup games so far. They both knew that James was far more entertained by the flying cutlery than the trivia that came with it, but that didn’t stop either of them from trying.

“I won’t be back too late,” Harry told her.

Ginny nodded. “Don’t forget I’m taking him to Bill’s tomorrow. He told me Vicky’s been asking about him in two languages while they were in France.”

“Ladies man already,” Harry remarked dryly.

Ginny laughed. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t have your way with women then.”

“Thanks, Ginny.”

“You’re not arguing, though,” Ginny pointed out. “Come on, go if you’re going to. Go help Malfoy.” Her face twisted. “I can’t believe I just said that.”

“It’s been a strange week,” Harry agreed.

He walked over and kissed her on the cheek and James on the top of the head, feeling, not for the first or last time, the wonderful amazement that this was his son.

“Be careful,” Ginny whispered.

Harry gave her a firm nod. Then he smiled. Then he Disapparated.

He landed in the front garden of a house on the outskirts of Winchester. Hermione had, with typical foresight, arranged so it was possible for one or two people to appear in the gap between the hedge and a small tree without being seen from the road. Harry made sure his robles hadn’t entangled on anything and walked up to the front door. The house was on the floo network, but Harry preferred to Apparate outside if he could; the last thing he wanted to do was interrupt Ron and Hermione in the middle of one of their arguments. Or anything else, for that matter.

As Hermione opened the door, he was relieved to find they weren’t doing anything that would cause him to act like he’d seen and heard nothing and then go for a long walk.

“… he said he didn’t tell me because then I’d have felt like I had to listen even though I don’t like the games. Hello, Harry. Come in.”

“Well, that’s exactly why he should have told you,” Ron called from the sitting room. “We could have had half the games on the wireless and you wouldn’t have complained. Don’t see why Krum would have a problem with you learning a bit about Quidditch since you know everything else.”

Harry walked carefully around the semicircle of unoccupied carpet surrounding the grandfather clock and sat down on the opposite end of the sofa to Ron. Hermione dropped in between them.

“Maybe,” she suggested, “he was considerate enough to realise that if I did that, you’d just ignore me every time there was a game on.”

“Hermione Weasley,” Harry sad solemnly. “Another of England’s Quidditch widows. So young, and with a child on the way. Tragic.”

Ron burst out laughing. Hermione rolled her eyes, placing her palms defensively over her stomach.

“I’m perfectly capable of making myself a widow, thank you,” she said. “Ginny too, if necessary.”

“You should write to Anastasia,” Ron added. “Start a support group.”

“Or re-enact Strangers on a Train,” Hermione growled.

“So…” Harry interrupted. “How did you get on in the archives today?”

“As soon as this is over, I’m recommending to the department that we seriously rethink our security policies.”

“That bad, love?”

Hermione nodded. “You have to sign in,” she said, with a dangerous edge to her voice. “That is all.”

“Are you sure?” Harry asked. “It might just be… you. You’re their boss. Everyone in the Ministry knows who you are.”

She shook her head. “I transfigured myself so they wouldn’t recognise me.”

“But what about…” Ron gestured at her stomach.

“Oh.” Hermione coloured slightly. “I… I thought of that. I made myself taller and a different build so I didn’t show so much. And I gave myself hair like Ginny’s. It was the first reference I could think of.”

“Not bad.” Harry grinned. “You’re Hermione. Half the people out there just recognise you by your hair.”

“You must have looked like my aunt,” Ron muttered.

“At any rate, nobody recognised me,” Hermione went on. “You have to sign into the archives using your real name, that’s the only magical security they have. After that, you can go wherever you like and look at anything. They don’t even lock the doors. The Ministry vaults are sealed and warded, obviously, but the paper records have no protection at all.”

“Even ours?” Ron exclaimed.

“If you can read the handwriting,” Hermione muttered.

“Robards isn’t going to be happy,” Harry said.

“But you have to know what you’re looking for, right?” Ron said. “Otherwise you’d be in there for days.”

Hermione nodded. “And as long as you didn’t try to leave with it. That would set off the wards. But there’s nothing to stop information being copied down.”

“So someone signs into the archives, finds their way to our section and checks the confiscation list from the Malfoy raid,” Harry summarised.

“Not just that list,” Ron added. “They’d need to make sure he was telling the truth and we still had it.”

“Right.” Harry nodded. “Hermione… please say you have some idea who did it.”

Hermione looked back at him, solemn and serious. And then her face split into a triumphant smile. “I know exactly who did it.”

“When was the last time I told you how brilliant you were and how lucky I am to have you?” Ron asked.

Hermione’s smile softened. “Far too long ago.”

They leaned towards each other. Harry made a sound of semi-feigned disgust as he looked away. Fumbling in his robes to find a quill to write down whatever Hermione was about to say once she’d finished being distracted, he managed to drop a handful of change, which rolled across the carpet towards the grandfather clock. Without thinking, Harry knelt down to retrieve it.

“Huit heurs dix-sept!” the clock yelled.

The couple on the sofa behind him jolted away from each other. “Harry!” Hermione exclaimed. “Be careful!”

“Sorry!” Harry scooped up his change as quickly as possible and edged backwards. “Why do you still have that thing?”

“Fleur would be heartbroken if we got rid of it,” Ron pointed out. “Anyway, it’s grown on me.” He caught the look on Hermione’s face. “You were about to show us how brilliant you’ve been, love.”

Hermione nodded, mollified, and the men on either side of her relaxed. “It wasn’t Pliny Ventura,” she began.

“That would’ve been too easy,” Ron muttered.

“After I’d checked the security, I changed back and got a copy of the sign-in list for the week between the two offers to Malfoy. Sixteen people signed in that week.”

“They shouldn’t have done this during summer,” Harry said.

Ron shook his head. “They’re using the World Cup as cover.”

Once again, Hermione waited for their expectant looks before going on. “Fourteen of the visitors were Ministry employees, so I ruled them out for the moment. Of the other two, one of them was Ajax Nestor. I don’t think it was him.”

“It wasn’t,” Harry said.

“Who is he?”

“AJ’s a private agent,” Ron explained. “Makes a living figuring out what happened to people who went missing during the war. He’s honest, but not always legal. Harry and I had to arrest him a year ago for spiking an ex-snatcher’s drink with truth serum. Said he was doing what he had to do. He probably shouldn’t have been in the archives, but this isn’t like him.”

“Why didn’t you think it was him?” Harry asked.

“Because the other visitor was a much stronger possibility. Horatio Claudius Shade.”

Ron and Harry looked at each other over her head. “Who’s he?”

“His father was Claudius Alonso Shade.”

Another exchanged look. “Rings a bell,” Ron said hesitantly.

Hermione sighed. “He wrote _Shade’s Penumbra_. It’s one of the most influential texts on Defence Against the Dark Arts.”

“Then why have we never heard of it?” Harry inquired.

“Because it’s about combat magic,” Hermione explained. “And it was written before the First War. After that, a lot of the textbooks had to be rewritten based on experience rather than the classic theory. And those were the ones we used at Hogwarts. Professor Dumbledore insisted. Many of them quote or borrow whole sections from Shade’s, but there was no requirement to go back to the original text.”

“But you did anyway.” Ron grinned.

“What does all this have to do with Horatio Shade and the library?” Harry asked. “I assume he’s Claudius’ son.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Don’t you see? It has everything to do with the library. You’re right. Claudius was Horatio’s father. Claudius died two years ago. But there were rumours that before he died he was working on a new book. It was supposed to be a follow-up to _Penumbra_ that covered both wars as well.”

“If his son can get into Black’s library, then he can finish his father’s masterpiece,” Harry considered. “Or he can make his own reputation.”

“I can’t believe anyone would go through all this to write a textbook,” Ron said.

“It’s more than a textbook.” Hermione bristled. “It’s… being the best. For an academic, this is how you live forever. And we all know where that path leads.”

“Then let’s stop him now,” Harry said. “How certain are you it’s him?”

Hermione shrugged. “As certain as I can be.”

“Then that’s good enough for us,” Ron said. “And it’ll be good enough for Robards.”

“But what about Ventura?” Harry muttered. “What’s the connection between him and Shade?”

Ron shrugged. “His dad wrote old books. Ventura sells them. Maybe that’s it.”

“If it’s deeper than that then we’ll find it.” Harry sat back. “Ron and I will round up the trainees first thing in the morning and start background checks on Shade, Ventura, Ventura’s suppliers and customers, Shade senior’s friends, colleagues and publisher.”

“That will be a lot of people,” Hermione observed.

“Then we’ll draft in some DMLE investigators,” Harry said. “Quietly. This has to be small but it has to be fast.”

“You’re right, mate. This is much bigger than Malfoy. And two guys couldn’t do all this.”

Harry took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “We’ll see Robards first thing and get a plan of action organised by lunch time.”

“There’s something else,” Hermione said quietly. “I had an owl just before I left work. The items will be arriving by special courier tomorrow morning.”

“Floo Malfoy as soon as they arrive,” Harry told her. “Tell him to come to your office at four. If he wants our help, we’ll need some from him as well.”

***

At exactly four pm the next day, Sam Samson rapped gently on Hermione’s door. “Mr Malfoy is here, Hermione.”

“Make sure we aren’t disturbed, Sam,” Hermione replied.

Malfoy’s entrance was different to the last time. He came in without a word, slowly scanning the office like he expected a trap. When none materialised, he shook her hand again and took the offered chair.

“Thank you for coming,” Hermione said.

She raised her wand and cast a several charms over the office door. As soon as they were in place, there was a swish and the two unoccupied chairs suddenly contained Ron and Harry. Malfoy barely turned his head.

“Potter. Weasley.”

“Malfoy.”

“Do you have the items?” Malfoy asked.

“We’ll get to that,” Harry said.

“All right, Potter. What progress have you made finding out who’s been threatening my wife?”

“We think we know who’s behind it,” Harry told him.

“You think you know?”

“And we know what they want.”

“The book,” Malfoy said dismissively. “My mother told me.”

“Don’t you care why they want it?” Ron demanded.

Malfoy shook his head. “No Weasley, I don’t. That’s Auror business. I do care about who they are, so if you asked me here to tell me that then I’m waiting.”

Harry sighed. “We think Pliny Ventura is working with a wizard called Horatio Claudius Shade. Do you recognise the name?”

“No.”

“He was at Hogwarts,” Hermione explained. “Four years ahead of us. He was in Ravenclaw. A prefect. He worked as a freelance journalist reporting on magical crimes and writing the occasional book review. He went aboard during the war. Afterwards, he went back to his writing, but he never took a steady position at any of the papers, but he hasn’t published an article since his father died two years ago.”

Malfoy leant back in his chair. “How is he living, then?”

“His father’s books,” Harry replied. “The royalties are enough to live quietly on.”

“What connects him to Ventura?”

“We…” Hermione hesitated. “We don’t know yet.”

“I’m shocked.”

“What do you know, then?” Ron asked. “I bet you haven’t just been sitting around polishing your wand while we’ve been doing all the work. Even you’ve still got some friends. What’ve they got to say about him?”

Malfoy scowled at the three expectant faces around him. “Nothing. According to Nott’s people, he’s never even been accused of selling junk.”

Ron grinned. “Exactly what our records say. Nice that we can agree on something.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” Malfoy growled. “What am I doing here, Potter? You want something from me or we’d be having this conversation through the floo.”

“Give him what he asked for, Hermione,” Harry said.

Hermione reached under her desk and placed a package in front of her. One by one, she took out the things Malfoy had asked for. The necklace flared in the summer sunlight. The letter opener tinkled next to it. The tick of the table clock seemed to fill the room. The elegant ring’s crest was turned towards the three men. The book thumped, heavy and solid, ancient pages whispering to themselves.

“Here you are, Mr Malfoy,” Hermione said. “Everything you requested. You’ll need to examine them and then sign the receipt.”

“And then?” Malfoy asked.

“Then,” Harry told him, “you’re going to arrange to meet Pliny Ventura, so he can give you twenty thousand galleons and you can give him what he wants.”

***

At three in the afternoon on the next burning July day, the Leaky Cauldron was almost deserted. Despite the cooling charms, there was still a stickiness in the air that Malfoy could taste as he stepped inside. He straightened up, adjusted his grip on the cane in his right hand and the attaché case in his left, and walked across the bar towards the table where Pliny Ventura and another man waited for him. As he did so, he scanned the rest of the room, noting the bored brown haired barmaid, the two wizards next to the door and the apparent double date in the far corner.

Ventura stood, smiling. “Mr Malfoy. Thank you for joining us, although I’m not sure why we couldn’t do this at my shop?”

Malfoy shook his hand. “I prefer to do business in public. Fewer people ask questions that way.”

“Oh, as you will,” Ventura said cheerfully. “Please sit down. This is my associate, Mr Hawthorn.” He leaned closer. “Twenty thousand galleons is a lot to walk around with.”

Malfoy nodded, glancing at Hawthorn. The other man’s dark eyes flickered over him and then went back to examining the interior of the bar. Malfoy sat down opposite them, placing the case next to him, but keeping his right hand on the handle of his cane.

“Firewhisky,” he called.

“Out of curiosity,” Ventura said, “what made you decide to accept my offer after all?”

Malfoy forced his expression to remain neutral as he stared at Ventura in confusion. There was nothing but honest curiosity in his face. But the flicker in his associate’s eyes didn’t escape Malfoy’s notice either.

“I gave it some thought,” Malfoy replied carefully. “Twenty thousand galleons buys a lot of baby clothes, after all.”

“Indeed it does!” Ventura grinned.

The barmaid placed Malfoy’s drink in front of him. He took a sip and managed not to grimace at the taste of the inferior brand. Then he put the glass down and tapped his fingers against his cane. Hawthorn’s eyes flickered again but Malfoy pretended he hadn’t noticed.

“Do you have the money?”

“Of course.”

Ventura gestured to Hawthorn, who opened a thin leather wallet and showed Malfoy a promissory note from Gringotts for twenty thousand galleons.

“The items?” Ventura asked.

Malfoy kept his eyes on the pair opposite him and flipped open the attaché case on the floor. He placed the necklace on the table in front of Ventura, then the letter opener, then the ring, then the clock.

“Oh excellent, excellent,” Ventura exclaimed. “These really are beautiful, Mr Malfoy. You don’t see craftsmanship like this much these days.”

“What about the book?” Hawthorn asked.

“Hmm?” Ventura looked up from examining the ring. “Oh yes, the book.”

“Where is it?” Hawthorn demanded.

Malfoy sat back in his chair, the grip on his cane tightening. “The book is my precaution. I’ll hand it over when I’m sure I’m getting my money.”

“That’s not good enough,” Hawthorn hissed.

“Calm down!” Ventura exclaimed. “This is just a misunderstanding…”

He tailed off as Hawthorn drew his wand. “Hand over the book,” he said. “Now.”

Malfoy gripped his cane tightly, but kept his voice calm. “What if I don’t?”

Hawthorn gave a faint nod. The pair of wizards by the door and the quartet in the corner shifted in their seats.

“Then my friends will persuade you.”

“What’s going on?” Ventura asked weakly.

Malfoy ignored him. “Suppose I brought friends too?”

Hawthorn laughed. “You’re Draco Malfoy. You don’t have any friends.”

Finally, as his grip on the cane relaxed ever so slightly, Malfoy allowed himself to smile. “Maybe not. But I have some very reliable enemies.”

The table exploded backwards. The force of the blast was enough to flip it over, crashing on top of Ventura and pinning him down. Hawthorn was blown out of his chair and rolled head over heels across the floor, his wand clattering away.

As the barmaid screamed, Malfoy leapt to his feet, springing away from the wreckage and swinging the wand in his left hand towards the pair by the door. Behind him, the quartet drew their wands, but the first one on his feet caught a Stunning spell to the chest and crashed back into the others.

While the remaining three looked wildly around for the source of the spell, Malfoy sent two quick jinxes towards the ones in front of him before swapping the wand to his right hand, slipped to his left, ducked and hit one of his opponents in the ankle.

The trio were still pinned in the corner, parrying desperately and casting curses in the rough direction of their invisible attackers. One of them accidentally deflected a spell into his ally’s arm, causing her to start giggling uncontrollably.

On the floor, Hawthorn finally managed to reach his wand, point it at the empty corner of the bar and slash horizontally.

There was a roar of wind and the Invisibility Cloak was swept across the room, revealing Harry and Ron in the corner. They exchanged a look and then leapt in opposite directions.

“Aurors!” Ron yelled. “Put up your wands!”

It had no effect, so he settled for Stunning the giggling witch, sending her backwards against the wall, finally falling silent.

Harry went the other way and cannoned into Hawthorn as he got to his feet and aimed his wand at Malfoy’s back. As he did so, the wizard by the door, doing his best to defend his companion – whose foot Malfoy had stuck to the floor – finally got a good look at his new opponent and his eyes widened.

“Merlin, it’s Potter!” he exclaimed, and bolted for the door.

He got about half way there before a jet of blue light arced across the room and hit him in the back. He hurtled straight up into the air, slammed hard against the ceiling and stayed stuck there.

“Last orders!” Hannah Abbott roared across her pub, standing behind the bar with Neville at her side.

Harry used the distraction of her appearance to pivot and Disarm one of the wizards facing Ron. The man had just enough time to gape in surprise before joining his colleague on the ceiling.

The one stuck by the door sent a heavy curse towards Malfoy and wrenched his foot out of his shoe. Malfoy cast a Stinging jinx towards his face, which he blocked, and then a binding spell towards his knees, which he didn’t.

Hawthorn got to his feet again and shot a spell at Harry that the younger man had to twist awkwardly to parry. Harry sprang back, widening the distance and threw a sequence of jinxes, each one meeting a counter-jinx cast by Hawthorn in return.

Hannah took a step towards the duel, but Neville pushed her back as a hex flashed past her face and melted one of the bar taps. The witch who cast it ducked the three retaliatory Stunning spells but had no defence when the table she was hiding behind slammed backwards, sandwiching her against the wall.

The remaining wizard’s eyes flickered uncertainly between Hannah, Ron and Neville, but before he could make up his mind which one to strike at first, Ron simply grabbed an abandoned bottle off the bar and threw it as hard as he could. The wizard instinctively raised his hands, but was not quite fast enough. The bottle hit him a split second before Neville’s spell sent him tumbling upwards.

That just left Harry and Hawthorn duelling in the middle of the room, matching each other move for move. Multi-coloured lights danced between the pair and sparks crackled out onto the tables and floor. Hawthorn took a step back, then another. Hannah gripped her wand, preparing to cast a shield charm. Neville and Ron looked around for a flanking position. Malfoy crossed his arms and waited.

Hawthorn took a last step back, and his foot hit the wall. He hesitated for an instant, and Harry lunged. He parried the one curse Hawthorn had time to cast and stabbed his wand past the other man’s guard, firing a spell straight into his chest. Hawthorn went rigid, staring straight ahead for a second, then he crumpled into a heap on the floor.

Harry took a deep breath. “Is that all of them?”

“Yeah,” Ron said. “Nice move, by the way.”

“Thanks.” Harry adjusted his glasses. “And thanks Hannah, Neville. Sorry about that. We didn’t think there would be so many of them. Call the DMLE and say they started a bar fight that you finished. Don’t mention us.”

“Sure,” Hannah replied. “But if you ever start a fight in my place again then I’ll stick you to the ceiling and leave you there till the Aurors come to collect you. Do you understand?”

Harry nodded. “Absolutely.”

“Your girlfriend’s scary,” Ron said to Neville. “Neville? You alright there?”

Neville was staring at the melted bar tap with a mixture of thoughtfulness and disbelief. Then he spun around and looked straight at Hannah.

“Hannah?”

“Yeah?”

“Will you marry me?”

A shocked, breathless moment passed until Hannah let out an astonished laugh. “Yes. Of course I will.”

Malfoy started clapping slowly. Everyone ignored him.

As the newly engaged couple embraced, Ron turned to Harry. “There. And we didn’t have to set him on fire or anything.”

“Ginny will be so happy,” Harry said.

There was a crash behind them. They turned in time to see Ventura had gotten free of the overturned table and was scrambling towards the door. The two Aurors went for their wands, but Malfoy was quicker. There was a flash of light and suddenly Ventura’s belt was alive, green and hissing. The man screamed and tumbled back to the floor, clawing his robes away from his body, but the snake advanced remorselessly until it reared up on his chest, spitting loudly, fangs bared.

“Malfoy, that’s enough!”

Malfoy gave a dismissive flick of his wand, and the snake was a belt again. Ventura’s body went slack against the floor, shivering and pale. He looked, wide-eyed, at the three wands pointing at him and raised his trembling hands.

“Pull your trousers up,” Ron told him. “You’re nicked.”


	4. The Riddle in the Shelves

Francis Hawthorn stared contemptuously across the cell, as though he knew that he was being watched. Robards folded his arms and looked down at Harry.

“Well?”

“He’s not saying anything, sir,” Harry answered. “He’s just keeps asking for his solicitor. When we asked if he wanted to make a statement, he… wasn’t polite. All we know for certain is that it’s his real name.”

“What about the six in the DMLE cells?”

“Thugs,” Ron said. “Hired in Knockturn Alley for a hundred galleons each in case Malfoy made any trouble. They told us everything to stay out of Azkaban.”

“And they aren’t lying?”

Hermione cleared her throat and Ron stepped back so Robards could look at her. “All of them have been arrested by the DMLE before. Usually for either assault or harassment. I have their files here.”

Robards nodded. “This is official now. What were you two thinking, starting a fight in the Leaky Caldron? Don’t answer that. I’ll have to report it… first thing in the morning. You have until then to make sure I’ll be telling the Minister about more than just a botched sting.”

He strode away. Harry looked at Ron. “At least we know where to start.”

He gestured to the window of the interrogation room. Pliny Ventura sat at the lonely table, staring at his hands as they twisted and writhed. Every now and then he would glance at the door, his expression a mixture of hope and fear.

“So who talks to him?” Ron asked.

“I think Hermione should do it,” Harry said.

Hermione flinched. “Are you sure? I’m not a trained interrogator.”

“I don’t think that’s what we need,” Harry told her. “We just need someone he knows will understand him. You heard what Malfoy said. I don’t think he knows the whole story. But we need what he knows before his solicitor gets here and tells him to keep quiet.”

Ron nodded. “So you just get him to tell you everything he knows about Shade and where he is, what he thinks is going on, and anything he can tell you about Hawthorn. Okay?”

“And if he doesn’t cooperate,” Harry added with a smile, “we’ll just send Ron in to play the bad cop.”

Hermione didn’t quite manage to stifle a snort at that. Ron gave Harry an indignant look. She took a moment or two to compose herself and then opened the door and walked into the room.

Ventura looked up, fear turning to confusion as he saw who had come to speak to him. His hands stilled and he straightened up.

“Mr Ventura,” she said, sitting down opposite him, “do you know who I am?”

“Yes… of course… Miss Granger. It’s an honour to meet you.”

“Madam Weasley,” Hermione corrected. Under most circumstances, she didn’t mind being addressed by her maiden name, but she made an exception if it suited her.

Ventura flinched. “Yes. Of course. I’m sorry.”

“My husband and his colleagues are outside,” Hermione told him. “I convinced him that a full and thorough interrogation wouldn’t be necessary if you were to talk to me first.”

“Full and thorough interrogation?” Ventura’s eyes widened. “Yes, of course. What do you want to know?”

In the corridor, Ron looked down at Harry and grinned. “Merlin, I love that woman.”

“Why were you really willing to pay twenty thousand galleons for five family heirlooms belonging to Draco Malfoy?”

Ventura shifted in his seat. “I received information that one of them was charmed to point the way to the supposed library of Phineas Nigellus Black.”

“We know about the library,” Hermione said. “I take it you were told about this by Horatio Shade?”

“Well… yes. How did you know?”

“How do you know Mr Shade?”

“He… he wrote an article on my anti-theft wards,” Ventura replied. “Before the war. We kept in touch afterwards. Two months ago, he owled me. He said he had found the key to Phineas Black’s library with the help of his late father’s last research, but he needed a sponsor. He offered me the whole library in return.”

Hermione’s eyes narrowed. “The whole library? What does he get?”

“Just a small selection he said had little value. To complete his father’s book. That’s all he asked for.”

“Are you aware that Mr Malfoy came to us for help because Mr Shade was threatening his wife?”

“Threatening?” Ventura exclaimed. “No! Why would he do that?”

“To make sure he got what he wanted,” Hermione replied. “At this point, the Aurors consider you an accessory to this crime.”

Ventura started shaking. “But I had no idea! Please, Madam Weasley. Hawthorn might know. Horatio said I should take him to the meeting because he thought we might not be the only ones looking for the library. I had no idea he’d brought those… people as well. I didn’t even know he knew all along it was the book we needed.”

“Do you know where Mr Shade is now?”

“He should be at home. If he isn’t… I don’t know, I’m sorry.”

Hermione nodded. “Thank you, Mr Ventura. I need to speak to the Aurors. I’ll see what I can do for you.”

“Thank you.”

Ventura cautiously held out his hand. Hermione took it. His palm was slick with sweat, but she didn’t wipe it off until she was back in the corridor.

“You were brilliant,” Ron said as he led the way to the lifts.

Hermione let her blank expression slip away and sadness filled her eyes. “He isn’t lying. He’s terrified.”

“Shade used him,” Harry muttered.

Ron scowled. “You sure he wasn’t a Slytherin?”

“What now?” Hermione asked.

“We find Shade,” Harry told her. “As fast as we can.”

Ron stopped in the middle of the corridor. “Something’s not right.”

“What is it?”

“Ventura said Shade promised him everything in the library. That’s ten thousand books, most of them probably worth a fortune to an antiques dealer. So if he wasn’t lying, what’s in there that Shade wants so badly?”

“Why would Shade be telling the truth?” Harry asked.

“Why lie, though? He could name his price for all this and Ventura would have given it. But all he wants is the money for Malfoy and something Ventura would think was worthless.”

“Ron’s right,” Hermione said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Then we’ll find Shade and ask him,” Harry said as they reached the lifts.

A few minutes later, they arrived at the Auror offices. “Sleepless!” Ron called. “Was he at home?”

Auror Rob McElroy shook his head. “No, Ron. Did a spell and there’s nobody in the house. Jen stayed on watch in case he comes back.”

“Typical,” Malfoy exclaimed from where he’d been sitting at Harry’s desk reading the Prophet. “Of course, I shouldn’t be surprised. And when can I leave, Potter?”

“When I say so,” Harry responded. “And believe me, that will be as soon as possible. I don’t want you to be here anymore than you do.”

“We’ve got to go in,” Ron hissed. “It’s the only way we’ll find out what Shade’s really up to.”

“But what about finding him?” Harry asked.

“We’ve got the book, though,” Ron reminded him. “We’ve got Malfoy and we’ve got Ventura. We’re looking for him and the DMLE’s looking for him. What’s he going to do?”

Harry shrugged. “He might be able to find another of the library keys.”

“Before we catch him?”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Harry nodded. He turned to Hermione, who had watched the entire exchange without speaking. “Can you stay here and try to find out what’s really in the book? I need to talk to Robards.”

“Of course.” Hermione sat down behind Ron’s desk.

“Chesterfield!” Ron shouted across the office.

“Yes, Auror Weasley?”

“Keep an eye on my wife. Anything she needs, make sure she gets it.”

“Yes, Auror Weasley.”

“Ron!” Hermione protested.

Ron grinned. “Come on, Hermione. It’ll be faster this way. And who’ll reach all those high shelves if I’m not around?”

Hermione just rolled her eyes, but before she could say anything, Harry hurried back from Robards’ office, glancing around as he did so.

“Right… Rob and Iona, come with us. And you should bring August and Sally too. They’ve never been on a raid before.”

The Aurors in question nodded and stood, while their trainees looked nervously at each other. Harry picked up his notes and headed towards the briefing room. Hermione sprang to her feet, stood on tiptoe and brushed a gentle kiss across Ron’s cheek as her husband followed their best friend into action once again.

***

The large but unremarkable house stood dormant in the summer twilight. Genevieve DuPont had been watching it for two hours. There was no movement visible through the windows. The sky had darkened, but no lights had come on inside. Every ten minutes, she had cast the faintest of detection spells, but the result was always the same.

She reported all this to Harry when he arrived, who nodded thoughtfully. “Nothing stronger?”

DuPont shook her head. “I might have set off a ward.”

“So we have no idea what’s actually in there,” Ron muttered.

“And what sort of risk is that?” McElroy asked.

“Unknown risk,” August Cesar said promptly.

Harry nodded to himself. Aurors only knew about two types of risk: unknown and high.

“Two doors,” Ron told him. “One front, one back.”

Another moment passed. Harry kept his eyes on the waiting house. “Two groups. I’ll take the front door with Rob and August. Iona, you take the back door with Ron and Sally.”

“Right, guv,” Iona Jones nodded.

“Jen, stay here. Concealment and repelling charms and an anti-Apparition ward. Watch our backs.”

“Yes, Harry,” DuPont replied.

Ron turned to the two trainees, who were shifting nervously. “Stick with the basics. Stun or Disarm. And if you get into trouble, just throw up a shield and yell for help.” He gave them a cheerful smile. “And if all else fails, just point your wand and yell the first thing that comes into your head.”

“Entry in three minutes,” Harry said.

He and Iona tapped their wands together and the groups split, moving slowly towards Shade’s home. There were still no lights on and still no movement beyond the darkened windows. The house was quiet. Hidden by concealment charms, the approach of the six Aurors was marked by nothing more than a rustle in the manicured garden.

Harry positioned himself three feet from the front door with McElroy behind him and Cesar at the rear. He glanced over his shoulder at DuPont on the other side of the road. She held her wand loose at her side. All was well. So far.

His own wand hummed in his hand. It lasted for only a few seconds and then stopped. He nodded to the other two. His wand hummed again, a brief pulse of only a second, a pause, and then another. Iona, Ron and Sally would be in position by now, Iona’s wand pulsing in synch with his own.

By five, his whole body was tense and the door seemed to be expanding to fill his whole world. At six, he forced himself to focus, blotting out the thoughts of what could be inside. At seven, he felt a familiar calm creep over him that came with experience and having survived far worse things than a house that might not be empty. At eight, he heard a swish of fabric behind him as McElroy and Cesar drew their wands. At nine, he raised his own.

His wand pulsed ten.

“Stupefy!”

The door blew in with enough force to Stun anyone on the other side. It rebounded off the wall as McElroy fired a flare into the corridor. The light blazed off Harry’s glasses as he charged into the hallway, eyes sweeping left and right, ready to parry or cast a shield charm.

Steps behind him, McElroy amplified his voice to fill the house. “Aurors! This is a raid!”

There were identical sounds from the far side of the house as Jones blasted through the back door and rushed in, Ron behind her, ready to start casting over his subordinate’s head. The six Aurors fanned out through one empty room after another. Kitchen, dining room, lounge. Large rooms full of ornate furniture. What wasn’t made of leather was made of wood. The walls were lined with pictures; landscapes they almost recognised and portraits they didn’t have time to identify. The house had been occupied recently: there was fresh fruit in the kitchen, a copy of yesterday’s Prophet in the lounge, and the cooling charms in the master bedroom were still working.

Harry and Ron met in the lounge, under the curious gaze of Claudius Shade’s portrait. “He’s not here,” Ron said.

“He knows we’re looking for him by now,” Harry remarked. “If you had to run, where would you go?”

“Camping, mate.”

“Never let me forget that, are you?” Harry rubbed his eyes. “Even with the whole department, it could take a week to find anything here. What?”

Ron was looking around thoughtfully, staring at the walls, peering back into the corridor. “Harry… Shade was in Ravenclaw, right? His dad was in Ravenclaw. His dad wrote the definitive guide to the Dark Arts and he’s doing all this to get hold of a library.”

“What’s your point?”

“Where the hell are all the books?”

Harry glanced around, and snorted. “You’re right, Ron. Where are they?” He raised his wand to his neck. “Has anyone seen any books?”

“Haven’t seen any,” McElroy called from the dining room.

Cesar looked out of the kitchen. “He doesn’t even have a cookbook in here, sir.”

There was a thump on the stairs as Jones came down them. “I might have something, guv.”

“Books?” Ron asked hopefully.

“No, guv. But you should probably see it anyway.”

She led them upstairs. Sally Smyth was performing standard detection charms on the three bedrooms, focussing extra spells on anything she thought looked suspicious. The other three left her to it, walking slowly along the central corridor.

“Can you see what’s missing, guv?” Jones asked.

Harry looked around, examining the master bedroom, the guest room and a room that seemed to have been decorated for a long-grown child. Then he realised he was thinking too small.

“Where’s the entrance to the second floor?”

“Exactly, guv. Three floors outside, two on the inside. Sally and I’ve looked everywhere. And you don’t hide something boring, do you?”

“Passcode ward?” Ron suggested.

“Anything more powerful would register,” Harry agreed. “So what’s the password?”

Ron thought for a moment and then said loudly, “Penumbra.”

There was a faint click from behind them. The group turned, wands ready, to see the new door that the corridor had grown.

“Good guess, guv.” Jones smiled. “I’d have started with his birthday.”

“He is married to a genius,” Harry observed. “It was bound to rub off eventually.”

“Sleepless!” Ron called down the stairs. “We’re going up there. Anything happens, Stun first.” He gestured to the door. “After you, mate.”

Harry sighed, pushed back his glasses and walked up to the door. He cautiously reached out and brushed his fingers across the handle. Nothing happened. He waited until Ron and Jones were in position behind him and then grabbed the handle and pulled. The door jerked open, but there was nothing on the other side but a staircase. He let out a breath and then advanced up the short, cramped passageway, reassured by Ron’s heavy steps behind him.

The door at the top was as ordinary at the rest of the house. Harry cast a silent detection charm, but it revealed nothing. Once again, he brushed his fingers across the harmless handle, then he looked back at Ron and counted to three.

“Aurors, put up your wands!”

The pair crashed through the door, Harry sweeping to the right, Ron to the left. They found themselves in a long, wood-lined room, lit by two rows of enchanted candles. Beyond the candles was shelf after shelf of books, a solid wall of wood pulp reaching from floor to ceiling. The only gap was at the far end of the room, with a desk and chair on one side and a leather-lined chaise-lounge on the other.

“Well, we found the books,” Ron remarked.

“We’re clear!” Harry called back. “No Shade.”

The two of them walked through the attic to the desk. They recognised a few of the books from the Auror reference library and a few from school, but most of them were unknown. By the time they reached the far end of the room, they had silently agreed that Shade seemed to have obtained every significant book on hexes and curses ever written.

The desk, like everything else in the house, looked more like something simply bought in a shop rather than passed down through generations of wizards. Its centrepiece was an enchanted typewriter with built-in spell checker. Next to it was laid an engraved silver fountain pen. The chair was nothing special either, it was just designed to provide comfort to someone sitting in it for hours at a time.

The shelves around the desk were different too. Rather than reference books, they were filled with folders, files and spiral-bound notebooks.

“Liked his Muggle stationary, didn’t he?”

Harry picked the biggest box file and pulled it out, wincing at the weight. He set it down on the desk with a heavy thump, opened it, and looked down at the typewritten front page.

“ _Shade’s Penumbra, Volume Two_ ,” he read. “ _A Study of the Dark Arts in the Twentieth Century with Special Reference to the First and Second Wizarding Wars_.”

“We should have brought Hermione.”

As Harry idly leafed through the manuscript, Ron checked the shelves. “These all just look like research notes,” he explained.

“See if you can find anything written by Horatio Shade,” Harry told him. “If there’s anything about the library, it should be in here.”

Ron started with the notebooks. It was easier than he thought; a few minutes of checking titles and he had located one labelled Library.

The words inside bore the unmistakeable looped handwriting of an enchanted quill under the influence of a copying spell. They were letters. The addressee at the top varied, but the signature at the bottom was constant: Phineas Nigellus Black.

“Copies of the letters from the Restricted Section that Snape told us about,” Ron said as Harry leaned past him. “Yeah, here’s one from Black to his son Sirius. ‘I was forced to pay twice my offered price, but have satisfied myself that the book is complete and unabridged. Herbert and I will begin translation as soon as I return and both copies will take pride of place in the collection.’ Hang on… Claudius Shade wrote this. He must have been the one who figured out about the library.”

“So he is finishing his father’s work,” Harry said absently.

He was looking at a ring binder labelled Evidence. Opening it, he saw that each page had a name at the top, followed by columns of scribbled words in roughly alphabetical order.

Harry flipped the pages over, reading the names one by one. “Avery… Carrow… Carrow… Dolohov… Gibbon…” He stopped. “Ron… these are all Death Eaters.”

“And these are their spells,” Ron said, staring at the rest of the page. “Bloody hell, Harry, these are the priori incantatum lists from the trials.”

“What did he want with them?” Harry muttered. “He’s crossed out most of the spells.”

“This one’s got a question mark by it.” Ron pointed to a spot on Dolohov’s page. “Sectumsempra. Harry, isn’t that –”

“Yeah.” Harry grimaced. “For enemies.”

Ron flipped over a few more pages. “There’s a couple with question marks. And he’s underlined this one. Mosmordre. That’s the Dark Mark spell.”

“Yeah…”

The hairs on the back of Harry’s neck were standing up. He could almost feel his scar begin to tingle. He closed his eyes, trying to fit together the puzzle whose pieces were beginning to scare him.

“Bo… fles… bloo,” Ron said, snapping his concentration.

“What?”

“Dunno. It’s right here.”

Ron had turned to the back of the folder. The last page was a scrap of parchment that had been almost completely burned. But some of it remained, attached to a fresh sheet to hold it in place. There had once been writing on it, but the fire had done its work well and now all that was left were fragments of words: Bo… Fles… Bloo…

Beneath them, on the clean parchment, Horatio Shade had carefully written P.P. 1995.

Harry wasn’t in the attic anymore. He was in a cold, dark place he visited in nightmares that left him waking, shivering, in Ginny’s warm arms. A place he could never forget, no matter how hard he tried.

And he understood what all this had been for.

The real world returned with a snap, allowing him to hear Ron’s voice as his friend asked a question.

“What?”

“I said ‘what d’you reckon P.P. is?’.”

Harry shook his head. “Not what. Who. Come on. We’ve got to go.”

“Where?”

The shock of understanding had passed, and Harry could feel clear purpose burning under his skin. “The Ministry,” he told Ron. “Now.”

Ron nodded, trying to find the logical step Harry had taken that he had missed. “Okay, sure. What’s wrong?”

“I’ll explain on the way.” Harry slammed the folder closed and ran for the stairs.

Ron kept up with him easily enough, only he stopped by Jones where Harry had just barrelled past. “You’re in charge, Iona. There’s a pile of books upstairs that need reading. We’re heading back to check something.”

“Whatever you say, guv,” Jones replied, but Ron was already running after Harry again.

They slowed as they passed DuPont for just long enough to assure her that nothing was wrong, and then headed for the edge of the Apparition ward. Ron caught Harry’s arm just in time to follow him to the Ministry entrance hall. It was night now and the hall was dark and deserted, their footsteps crashing back at them as they charged across it towards the lifts. It was only once they were safely inside that Ron was able to turn to Harry – neither of them breathing particularly hard – and hope for an answer.

“Harry, what the hell’s going on? What are we doing, leaving a raid like that? What did you figure out?”

“I know what Shade wants,” Harry told him.

“Okay.” Ron nodded. “And what’s that?”

Harry glanced around, as if he wanted to be sure they weren’t being overheard while alone in a moving lift. “The spells on the Death Eater lists he didn’t cross out were the ones he couldn’t find a reference for. He wasn’t sure about Sectumsempra because Snape made it up. But he knew Mosmordre was right.”

“Snape didn’t come up with that one,” Ron muttered.

“No,” Harry said. “Voldemort did. Just like he created the spell on the burned paper. Bone of the father, flesh of a servant, blood of an enemy. The spell Peter Pettigrew used to bring him back.”

“Oh, shit,” Ron breathed.

“Yeah. That’s what Snape was trying to tell me. We shouldn’t have been worrying about who else could take things out of the library, we should have thought about who else could have put something in.”

Ron nodded. “Okay, but Shade might be wrong about all this. How did Riddle even find out about the place? And how did he get in there if he knew?”

“It’s there,” Harry insisted. “I know it is. It’s… it’s what I’d have done.”

“I don’t doubt you, mate,” Ron said. “But we’ve got to give Robards a reason we’re chasing the library and not Shade. Make a claim like this without evidence and he’ll think you’re nuts.”

“Someone knows,” Harry hissed. “Someone always knows. And I know who.”

He charged out of the lift and hurried through the corridor towards the Auror office with Ron a step behind him. A DMLE clerk saw them coming and threw himself against the wall out of the way. Then they were in the office, ignoring the questions from their colleagues and the concerned call from Hermione. Harry marched straight up to his own desk where Malfoy sat, his feet up on the table, idly flipping through the office newsletter.

“We need to talk your father,” Harry told him. “Tonight.”


	5. The Siege of Malfoy Manor

“Absolutely not.” Malfoy’s feet came down off the desk and his eyes were hard and cold as he met Harry’s gaze. “You’ve already dragged my mother into what you jokingly call an investigation, I see no reason for you to disturb my father as well.” 

“Oh, we’ve got one,” Ron said. 

“Amaze me, then.”

Harry shook his head. “No, Malfoy. Take us to Lucius, make sure he talks to us, and then you’ll know.”

“Try again, Potter,” Malfoy sneered.

“Alright then, Draco.” Harry glanced over his shoulder as Ron moved to shield them from the rest of the office, and then he leaned down and whispered into Malfoy’s ear, “Lord Voldemort.” 

No jinx, hex or curse could have had the effect of those words. Malfoy convulsed in the chair. The colour vanished from his face. His eyes went wide, pupils so large they seemed black rather than grey. His breath came in short, shallow gasps. Fifteen years fell from him, leaving a frightened little boy looking up at Harry and Ron. 

“That’s…” he finally gasped. “That’s impossible.” 

“Your father can help us,” Harry told him calmly. “We need to speak to him. Now.”

“He might not see you,” Malfoy whispered.

“Let us worry about that.” 

Malfoy slowly got to his feet. It took him two goes to pick up his cane. By the time he was standing, the arrogant mask was back in place, but it was slipping around the edges and he was putting more weight on the cane than necessary. 

“Any luck?” Ron called to Hermione.

“I’m compiling a list of possible passwords,” Hermione replied. “Where are you going?”

“Malfoy’s. We need to talk to his dad.”

“About what?”

Ron shook his head. “Can’t say here.”

“Do you need my help? I can do this anywhere.”

“Not going to say no, am I?” 

Ron helped her gather up the book, a few files and the rolls of parchment on which his wife had been making notes. She shoved them into her expanded handbag then got up and followed Ron to where Harry and Malfoy were waiting by the office door.

“Chesterfield! When Robards comes back, tell him we’ve gone to check a lead.” 

Harry led the way to the DMLE floo and a few minutes later they arrived in the sitting room at Malfoy Manor via a fireplace big enough to need its own postcode. They were faced by the two Mrs Malfoys, Narcissa looking up from a thick novel while Astoria stopped sharply in the middle of a spell designed to help with her swelling ankles. 

“Auror Potter.” Narcissa rose smoothly. “Auror Weasley. Madam Weasley. May I get you something?”

“No, thank you,” Harry said. “We’re here on business.” 

“Of course. Anything to assist the Aurors.”

Astoria, meanwhile, had swayed to her feet and stood in front of Malfoy. She glanced past him at the others and whispered, “What’s wrong, Draco?”

Malfoy gave the tiniest shake of his head, squeezing her hand so tightly it hurt both of them. “We have to speak to my father, Astoria. Stay here and keep Granger company.” 

“Are you sure that’s necessary, Draco?” Narcissa asked.

“Yes, mother. It is.”

Hermione began unloading her papers onto a nearby table and Ron arranged them the way they had been on his desk. “Good luck,” she muttered.

Ron eyed the growing pile of papers and smiled. “Yeah. You too.” 

The three men left the room, Narcissa trailing after them. Several minutes passed during which the only sound was the rustling of paper and Astoria’s muttering. Said muttering finally ceased and the younger woman looked up.

“You’ve probably been practicing this one for a month.”

Hermione started, looked up, and then gave a faint nod. “Yes.” She paused, then awkwardly admitted, “Mum was a little jealous when I told her about it.”

“Muggles with witches for daughters usually are,” Astoria said. “What did she say about the morning sickness potions?”

“That I shouldn’t risk it. And I agreed.”

Astoria gave a snort of disbelief. “My mother wouldn’t want me to suffer all that if I could avoid it.”

“True. But then I don’t imagine your mother has ever heard of thalidomide.” 

Instead of responding, Astoria stared at Hermione for a moment, pushed her hair back and said, “Go on. Ask.”

“Ask what?” Hermione responded, knowing the question.

“Why I married him.” 

Hermione held Astoria’s gaze. “I imagine you fell in love with him. And he with you. Anything beyond that’s none of my business, and I don’t think he’d want me knowing it anyway. In fact, until Ron told me about you, I didn’t even know he was married.”

“The owl with your invitation must have hit a headwind,” Astoria said.

Hermione nodded. “If you don’t mind me asking, how did you meet?”

“Theo introduced us. I’d just started at my father’s arithmancy firm and needed a client of my own. Draco needed someone to help him build a clean portfolio. He has instincts like no one I’ve ever seen. We made five thousand galleons in a month and he took me to dinner… What?” 

Hermione was staring at her over the papers. “It was you,” she breathed.

“What was?”

“You were going to come and see me yourself,” Hermione said. “It wasn’t that Malfoy didn’t think I’d see him. You made the appointment.” 

Emotions flickered in Astoria’s eyes before she finally nodded. “I told him if he wouldn’t ask for help then I would. He said he’d see you himself. How did you know?”

Hermione rested a hand on her stomach, feeling the life growing beneath her skin. Her child. Ron’s child. 

“Because,” she said, “if it were me, and Draco Malfoy was the only man in the world who could help, I’d ask without a second thought. And so would my husband.”

***

Malfoy led the way up staircase after staircase. The higher they climbed, the more ancient the manor felt. The stairs themselves grew lower and narrower, creating the unpleasant impression that the olive walls were closing in. 

Finally, with the ceiling brushing the top of Ron’s hair, they reached the end of the journey in front of a small door, and Malfoy rapped hard on it. 

“Father, it’s Draco.”

There was a pause, then a screamed response that almost made them jump. “Tell your mother I do not want dinner!” 

“Father, this is not about dinner!” Malfoy shouted back. “Open the door!”

“Then leave me in peace!”

“Lucius,” Narcissa called from behind them, “we have guests.”

There was no reply. Finally, there was a dull, heavy click from the far side of the door. It opened, and Lucius Malfoy stepped into the corridor. His eyes were dull, his skin was pale, his hair was pulled untidily behind his head and his robes were hanging off him. He stood in front of them, as silent as a man already dead. 

“Mr Potter.” The voice was almost the same, but there was something missing under the Malfoy arrogance. “Mr Weasley. Forgive me for not greeting you when you arrived. I had become absorbed in writing my memoirs. Please, come in.”

He turned on his heel and swept back into his room. It was nothing more than a garret, lit by ancient enchanted candles. There was a small window, a cot beneath it and a desk supporting a neat pile of paper covered in Lucius’ decaying handwriting. 

“I’m sorry,” Lucius said. “My office isn’t prepared to entertain guests. I’m sure you know I have few visitors since my… retirement from public life. Even so, it is always a pleasure to help the Ministry. What can I do for the Aurors tonight?”

Harry blinked slowly. It was late, he was tired, and one glance at Ron told him that neither of them were prepared to indulge Lucius’ delusions of enduring significance. 

“We’re here because of a book, Mr Malfoy,” Harry told him. “I’m sure you remember how much trouble a stray book can cause. Because of this one, someone’s already threatened your daughter-in-law and her unborn child. This afternoon, your son was attacked and things would have gone very badly for him if Ron and I hadn’t been there.”

Lucius’ eyes flickered past them to Narcissa’s pale face. She nodded. 

“Who is doing this?” Lucius demanded.

“Doesn’t matter,” Ron told him. “Not to you.”

“We know who,” Harry said. “We think we know why. We need you to tell us if we’re right.” 

Lucius smiled. “Yes, of course. Anything to help the Aurors.” 

“The person behind this is looking for the library of Phineas Nigellus Black. He wants to use a book that your wife inherited to find it. Hermione is downstairs as we speak trying to discover the password that’ll lead us to the library. Because we have to get there before anyone else does.”

“If you have the key, why the urgency?” 

Behind them, the other two Malfoys tensed. 

“I think Lord Voldemort put something in there,” Harry said.

For just a moment, Lucius Malfoy pulled himself to his full height, grey eyes burning cold. “Do not speak that name in my house!”

“Tom Marvolo Riddle,” Harry said, watching each syllable strike Lucius like a blow, “is dead. We burned his body. We scattered his ashes. But a long time ago he told Albus Dumbledore that he’d pushed the boundaries of magic further than anyone. Whatever he found out, he must have written it down somewhere. But they never found it after the First War, and we haven’t heard anything since the Second. So where is it?”

“I have no idea.”

“He left you his fucking diary!” Ron exploded. “Even if he was just stupid enough to trust you with that, you must have some idea where the rest of it went!”

“What ‘rest’?” Malfoy demanded. 

Ron shrugged. “That’s why we’re here. It was probably all his research into the Dark Arts. Potions. Flying without a broom. Ways to jinx your dream job. How to live forever. Shade had lists of the spells from the Death Eater trials and was trying to work out which ones Riddle made up himself.” 

“The Dark Lord never confided in another living soul,” Lucius said. 

“I don’t doubt that,” Harry responded. “He had followers, not friends. But what’s the point of being the most powerful Dark wizard in the world if you can’t prove it?” 

“Just tell him, father!” Malfoy exclaimed.

Lucius caught his son’s eye and seemed to shrink again. 

“Yes,” Harry said, “tell me. If you do, your three further wandless years could become eighteen months. But if you don’t, Mr Malfoy, then I swear that you will never touch a wand again as long as you live.” 

“Lucius.” Narcissa’s voice was barely a whisper in the crowded room. “Please.” 

Finally, the transformation complete, and Lucius slumped back onto his cot, looking up with dead eyes. “It was the Dark Lord’s pleasure to reward displays of competency or loyalty by teaching his servants spells of his own design. They would signal his acts as much as the Dark Mark. When he did so, he would present them with notes written in his own hand. They treasured them and learned his spells well, but none of them knew whence they were copied. After a while, however, I began to notice that each reward was preceded by a visit to one of his servants in particular. Rudolphus Lestrange.”

“Bella,” Narcissa murmured. 

“So Bellatrix had a key too,” Harry said. “What sort of things did he teach you? For example.”

Lucius shifted his gaze to Ron, now towering over him. “A blood freezing curse, for example. Antonin was very surprised that Miss Granger survived it. He must have missed her heart.”

Ron barely twitched. “Not Miss Granger. She’s Madam Weasley now.”

“Oh? I’m afraid I hadn’t heard. Congratulations.” 

“Is there anything else you know about it?” Harry asked. “Anything at all?”

Lucius shook his head. Harry didn’t move, and the shake became more fervent. Then, behind them, Narcissa shifted awkwardly. 

“I may know something,” she said. “I once overheard Severus Snape ask the Dark Lord if his secrets were still secure. The Dark Lord assured him that they were quite safe and no more was said.”

“I knew the git knew more than he was telling us,” Ron growled. 

Before Harry could respond, he was shoved aside. Malfoy barged past him, stepped over his father’s feet as though the man wasn’t there, and pressed his face to the attic’s small window. 

“What is it, Draco?”

Malfoy turned, but he didn’t have a chance to speak before they all heard Hermione’s amplified voice. “Ron! Harry! The window!”

The two Aurors didn’t hesitate. They pushed Malfoy out of the way and approached the glass. 

“What the hell?” Ron breathed. 

Outside, in the warm summer night, it was snowing. 

***

Harry pulled open the house’s main doors and stepped out into the snow. Ron was at his shoulder, wand ready. Hermione peered past his other side. 

“Ron, take the left,” he instructed. “I’ll take the right side. Hermione, stay here with the book. Watch our backs.”

“I’m coming too,” Malfoy hissed. 

“Fine,” Harry sighed. “You take the right, I’ll stay in the middle.” 

The three fanned out and advanced down the drive. The driveway lamps were lit, casting long shadows across the lawn. The snowflakes glittered in the night, whipped into strange patterns by the evening breeze. Their feet crunched on the gravel. Nothing else moved in the darkness. 

They’d gone a quarter of the way towards the front gate when Harry raised his hand. The others stopped. 

“This is the Aurors!” Harry called. “Stop whatever spells you’re casting, put down your wands and come out.” 

His words echoed over the silent lawn. There was no response, not even a rustle of the leaves. He glanced over his shoulder at the doorway. Hermione shook her head. 

He started moving forward again. Up head, he thought he saw a shadow flicker beyond the gates, but it was gone before he could be sure. Around him, the snow as thinning.

“This is your fault, Potter,” Malfoy growled. “If your idiots hadn’t insisted on taking down all my wards and then rebuilding them yourselves…”

“Shut up, Malfoy!” Ron told him. 

Harry stopped again, half way up the drive now. He felt a faint chill. The wind ruffled his hair. 

“Harry!” 

He turned back towards the house as Hermione shouted. She was pointing frantically to the left, beyond the edge of the drive. Before he could reply, he heard Ron gasp from the other direction and turned with his wand ready. He was just in time to see a fog bank like a solid white wall rear up above the hedges and then crash silently down around them. 

Suddenly, Harry could barely see beyond the end of his wand. He turned on the spot, trying to find a way to get his bearings. The whole world seemed to have been drowned in a thick, white blanket, leaving nothing but the scrape of his feet on the gravel, his panicked breathing and muffled sounds that seemed to come from very far away.

“Ron! Malfoy! Stay where you are!”

“Harry!” Ron called from his right. “They’ve got a meteomancer!”

“Really?” Malfoy exclaimed from Harry’s left. “How did you deduce that?”

Harry shuffled in the direction of Ron’s voice, his left arm stretched out, trying to wave the fog away. He heard a footstep, then another, and then long, strong fingers caught the cuff of his robes. He was jerked forward, almost off balance, as Ron appeared out of the wall and aimed a wand between his eyes. 

“That you, Harry?”

“Yeah. Is that you?”

“Cho started crying after she kissed you the first time.”

“And Hermione said you had the emotional range of a teaspoon when you didn’t understand why.” 

Ron lowered his wand. “Right. Harry, they’re trying to keep us away from the house.” 

“Then let’s get back. Malfoy, where are you?”

“Here!” The voice was close, and Malfoy edged cautiously out of the fog, his wand sweeping from one of them to the other. “What did my father tell me about Weasleys?”

Harry thought back to a train compartment fourteen years earlier. “Red hair, freckles and…”

“More children than they can afford,” Ron finished calmly. 

Malfoy lowered his wand. “Good. Let’s get back to the house.”

They shuffled cautiously back the way they had come, Malfoy leading the way with Ron behind him and Harry at the rear. Harry was just starting to wonder how long the journey would be and if they were even moving in the right direction when he heard a rustle from behind him. 

“What’s that?”

The rustle got louder. In a few seconds it was almost a roar, like wind crashing through tree branches, but the air was deathly still. The source of the sound was on top of them almost immediately, and Harry barely had time to raise his wand before a shape exploded out of the fog towards him. He had a split-second to recognise the topiary Hippogriff before it crashed into him, bowling him over. Ron and Malfoy dived out of the way as he slammed into the path, landing on his chest. He clung to his wand and scrambled sideways, trying desperately to think of a spell to use against a murderous animated hedge. 

***

Hermione stood in the doorway, casting spell after spell into the fog, muttering under her breath. None of them were working, meaning that somewhere out there, a witch or wizard of exceptional talent was counteracting all her efforts. 

“Do you know any weather spells, Astoria?” she called. 

“Nothing you haven’t tried,” Astoria answered from the sitting room. 

Hermione turned back to the doorway, wracking her brains. As she did so, she felt something brush her ankle. Glancing down past her expanding belly, she was just in time to see something flash past her and vanish down the corridor. 

“Astoria! You don’t have any pets, do you?” 

“No!”

Hermione slammed the door behind her and hurried back towards the sitting room. She was just in time to see the shape that had come through the door vanish inside. Astoria, who was peering out of the window into the fog, turned when she came in.

“There’s an animal in here,” Hermione told her. 

Astoria scanned the room, and then pointed her wand at the corner beside the fireplace. “There!”

Hermione whirled, aiming, and together they advanced on the furry shape. As they got closer, they realised it was a ferret. The long, thin body was like a coiled spring, tiny black eyes twitching between the two women. 

“What –” Hermione began, and then the window behind them exploded. 

They wrenched themselves around as broken glass showered the sitting room. For just a moment, they saw a witch on a broom suspended in the gap here the window had been, but, before they could move, she was gone. 

Then there was another flash of movement behind them. The ferret exploded out of the corner towards the desk. Hermione’s unspoken suspicions were confirmed as it sprang forward and transformed mid-leap into a blond wizard who crashed headlong into the table, knocking it over.

Both witches cast Stunning spells, but the upturned table gave him cover. The wizard fired a Blasting Curse straight upwards into the ceiling, and as Astoria and Hermione ducked to avoid the shower of debris, he was on his feet again, hurling something over their heads through the window. There was dust in Hermione’s eyes, but that wasn’t enough to stop her casting a hex that narrowly missed the wizard as he ducked again. His wand flashed, raising a shield charm to protect his half of the room, then he threw himself towards the door, transforming just in time for Astoria’s curse to miss him. 

The ferret landed by the door, scrambled on the carpet for an instant, and then was gone. 

***

As Harry was hit head-on, Ron had just enough time to dive out of the way. Malfoy raised his wand, and less than a foot from him, the topiary animal crashed into a shield charm. It reared up, its branches tearing at each other, and then turned back towards the other two. 

“Impediementia!” Ron roared. 

The Hippogriff trembled from the impact of the spell and then swiped a paw at Ron. It caught him with enough force to send him back into the hedge next to Harry. Together, they scrambled to their feet. 

“Now what?” 

Behind the Hippogriff, Malfoy dropped his shield, but kept his distance from the enraged hedge-creature. He raised his wand, then looked up into the fog as something silver flashed overhead. 

“Move, Potter!”

The pair leapt apart, scrambling in different directions as half a dozen silver javelins plunged down around them. One of them imbedded itself in the path a few inches from Ron’s outstretched arm. Another went straight past Harry’s head and sank into the Hippogriff, which didn’t react at all. 

He dragged himself to his feet, facing the topiary animal, levelling his wand at its face. There was a sound to his left and he risked a glance to see Malfoy taking aim.

Then, before either of them could do anything, they heard an explosion and shattering glass from the direction of the house.

“Astoria!” Malfoy yelled, turning on his heel and vanishing.

“Malfoy, wait!” Harry shouted after him.

For a critical second, he took his eyes off the Hippogriff. With a crash of branches, the beast sprang forward. Harry had just a split-second to cast the most powerful Freezing charm he could before it slammed into him. The sharp-edged branches tore at his skin as he was driven backwards, crushed against the hedge behind him and pinned between two solid barriers of vegetation. The world went almost dark, filling his vision with dim colours and shapes. His wand hand was out in front, buried deeply in the hedge creature while his left was at a right angle, fingers searching helplessly for something to grasp.

“Harry!” Ron yelled from outside the fused mass. “You okay?”

Twigs scraping against his glasses, Harry spat a leaf out of his mouth. “I’m fine!”

“Give me a minute to get you out of there!”

Harry was suddenly conscious that the air around him was warmer. The fog seemed to be thinning and the summer heat coming back. But there was something in the air: the pressing weight of an oncoming storm.

“I don’t think we’ve got a minute!”

“Diffindo!” Ron called, slicing at the frozen Hippogriff. 

Harry did the same, twisting his wand just enough to cast the Severing charm from inside the hedge and bit by bit, give his arm a little freedom of movement. A cut narrowly missed his fingers and then Ron wrenched the branches away, freeing his left hand. 

“What’s going on out there?” Harry demanded.

“I dunno,” Ron replied. “Something. Fog’s almost gone. Hang on.” 

He took careful aim and swiped his wand diagonally. The cut went just above Harry’s head, allowing the dim green and brown world he’d been inhabiting to brighten as the lamplight seeped in. Then he realised that the black above him wasn’t the night sky. 

“Ron!” he yelled. “Look up!”

Ron obeyed, and his mouth fell open. Hanging perhaps twenty feet above them was a thundercloud a hundredth the size of normal. In any other circumstances, it would have been ridiculous, but as the cloud thickened and a pattern of light flickered within it, they thought it was anything but. 

Without another word, Ron grabbed Harry’s free arm and pulled as hard as he could. Harry gasped, vegetation ripping at his exposed skin and feeling as if his shoulder was about to be dislocated. But his body barely shifted and all the while he could feel the pressure of the storm building around them. 

“Diffindo!” Ron repeated. 

The grip of the foliage was loosening, but not fast enough. Harry glanced up again, the cloud was darker and the sparks inside were brighter. Ron shoved his own arm up to the elbow into the hedge and leaned back, dragging with all his strength as Harry squirmed. 

The pressure was reaching a crescendo. Harry could feel it inside his head now and knew they had only seconds left. Thunder rolled above them.

“Ron!” he yelled desperately. 

“Fuck it,” Ron hissed, aimed his wand and shouted, “Reducto!”

The curse tore through the hedge, close enough that Harry felt it heat his skin. But the iron grip of the foliage was gone and Harry wrenched himself free just as Ron wrapped his long arms around him and hauled him away. 

Then, for a moment, the world was full of white light and noise. They crashed to the ground, hammered into the path as the blast rolled over them. Then, slowly, the afterimage faded and their ears cleared. The night was silent beyond a faint crackle, and orange light lapped gently around them.

They got to their feet. Behind them, what remained of the topiary Hippogriff was slumped in a heap, smoke rising from it as fire danced along its branches. The sky was clear, and around them the last of the fog was boiling away. 

“A lightning bolt?” Ron exclaimed. “Someone’s taking the piss.” 

Harry didn’t bother commenting. He straightened his glasses and looked around. They were only a few dozen yards from the house, and he could see the broken window that must have caused the noise they heard earlier. Hermione was leaning out of it, waving to them. 

Then he realised what he wasn’t seeing. 

At the same moment, Ron finished turning on the spot and asked, “Where’s Malfoy gone?”

***

“Mr Malfoy? Wake up, Mr Malfoy.”

Draco Malfoy’s eyes snapped open. He was in a chair and he had a split-second to realise he was tied to it as well. He refuse to give his captors the satisfaction of seeing him struggle against his bonds, so he remained still and glared up at the man with dark, disorganised hair looking down at him. 

“How dare you?” he demanded. 

“Because I have to, Mr Malfoy,” the man responded. “I’m sure you know by now that I’m Horatio Shade.”

“And you want the notes that the Dark Lord left in my ancestor’s library.”

Shade’s eyes flickered uncertainly for a moment. “You know more than I thought.”

He looked up, at something over Malfoy’s head, and Malfoy took the moment to look around. He was restrained at the back of a large Muggle car with rows of stiff, uncomfortable seats. He could see four of Shade’s allies in front of him and knew there must be at least one doing the driving. Then he realised that though they were obviously in motion there was no sense of a road beneath the vehicle. 

He was distracted by a hissed conversation between Shade and one of the others, a short haired man cradling a broom. “Horatio, the Aurors will be after us now.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Shade replied. “They won’t catch us, Ben. We have the book now. And if they do, that’s what he’s for.”

“So I’m just a hostage, am I?” Malfoy demanded.

“Amongst other things,” Shade told him.

“Where to, boss?” called a voice from the front of the car. 

“Let’s find out. Circe, where is it?”

A witch in flying robes handed Shade the book. Shade took it carefully, examining the cover and running his thumb across the spine. Only then did he place it on the seat beside him and open it. 

“I hope you’re right about this,” Ben said. 

“I am,” Shade answered. He drew his wand, placed it gently against the paper and said clearly, “Always pure.” 

A moment passed. Shade turned the ancient pages cautiously. Then, slowly, a smile crept over his face. Looking over his shoulder, Ben let out a snort of disbelief and grinned. 

“East!” Shade shouted to the driver. “Head for London!”


	6. St James’ Square

Harry and Ron crashed through the door of Malfoy Manor. Hermione met them coming the other way, colliding with Ron and throwing her arms around his waist. She only held on for a few seconds before letting go and looking Harry up and down. His face and hands were covered in tiny cuts. 

“What happened to you?” 

Harry shrugged. “Hedge Hippogriff.” 

“They took the book, Auror Potter,” Astoria told them. “An Animagus and a witch on a broom. They broke the window.” Then she looked around. “Draco? Where’s Draco?” 

Ron held up the wand that they’d found on the path near the door. “They took him.” 

Astoria let out a gasp and slumped. But before the others could do more than take a step towards her, she was upright again, taking deep slow breaths. The only outward sign of her nerves were her hands twitching over her swollen stomach. 

“They’ll take him to the library with them,” she said. 

Harry nodded. “Yes.” 

“As a hostage or because they know something we don’t?” Ron asked. “He is part Black after all.” 

“So am I,” Harry responded. 

“Through your grandmother,” Hermione pointed out. “Just the same as Ron. Will that be enough?”

“It doesn’t matter if we can’t find them first,” Ron interrupted.

Harry nodded. “Right. A witch on a broom, you said?” 

“You think they’re going to fly him all the way to the library?” Ron asked. 

“Do you think Black would let someone Apparate straight into his collection?” 

Ron shrugged. “Maybe.”

“It’s all we’ve got.” 

Harry ran back through the door and along the path with Ron following him. He passed the burned out remains of the Hippogriff and stopped between the lamps two thirds of the way down the drive. He looked up into the clear summer sky, performed a complicated twirl of his wand and pointed it towards the stars. 

“Penna Persector.” 

A spark of emerald light burst from the end of his wand and hurtled upwards. It burst above the house like a firework, separating into a dozen tiny points of light which formed an expanding circle hundreds of feet from the ground. Harry watched, waited and hoped. Seconds ticked by. Then Ron nudged his arm and pointed. One of the tiny lights had stopped moving and was hovering still in the air. As they watched, it grew from a single point to a wide green ribbon that was rippling gently above them. 

“Got them.”

The pair ran back towards the house. They jumped the steps and came to a sudden stop in the atrium. Narcissa Malfoy had returned from her self-imposed duty of watching her husband during the attack. She was now standing next to her daughter-in-law with a broomstick in each hand. 

“You’ll need these, I think.” 

Harry took one of the brooms. It was a Nimbus 2001. The other was a Cleansweep from a few years ago that, from the setup, he suspected belonged to Astoria. 

“Thank you.”

He threw the Nimbus to Ron and took the Cleansweep. “Hermione,” he said. “We’re going after Malfoy. It’ll take the office at least an hour to get the Flying Squad here so we’ll have to do it ourselves. As soon as we’re gone, floo and tell them what’s happened.” 

“Absolutely not,” Hermione responded. 

“Sorry?”

Hermione crossed her arms. “If you think I’m letting you two run headlong into the largest Dark Arts library in the world without me, then you don’t deserve to be Aurors.” 

“But we are Aurors,” Harry told her. “You aren’t. Besides…”

“Your Gryffindor chivalry never stopped you from bringing me along before!”

Ron shoved Harry aside. “You weren’t carrying my child before!” he shouted.

Harry cringed. Hermione walked up to her husband, seized his hand and glared up at him. 

“If you think I’m going to let this child grow up without a father while there’s a single thing I can do about, then you don’t know me at all. I’ll tear those brooms apart with my bare hands before I let you go without me.”

Ron looked down at her, a silent plea in his eyes for her to change her mind. Hermione’s gaze held firm. A million unpleasant possibilities flashed through Harry’s mind, but he knew there wasn’t time to entertain them; the tracking spell wouldn’t last much longer. 

“She comes,” he said quietly. 

“Harry…” Ron began.

“No, Ron. She can look after herself and we can look after her. And she can look after us. She comes, and everyone gets to go home alive.” 

“Thank you, Harry,” Hermione said.

Harry smiled awkwardly. “Do you really think I want Robards to have to go and tell Ginny and James that something’s happened to me because I was too stupid to take Hermione Granger into a library? Now get on Ron’s broom. We’re running out of time.”

Ron gave him a slow nod and swung his leg over the other broom. Hermione stepped beside him and wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, clinging to him with the bulge in her stomach pressed against the small of his back. There was a strange intimacy to it that Harry tried not to think about as he mounted his own broom.

“Auror Potter.” 

He twisted towards Narcissa. “Yes, Mrs Malfoy?”

“You owe me your life.”

Harry just nodded.

Narcissa looked down at Astoria. “Bring him back.” 

“Yes, Mrs Malfoy.” 

“And… take this.” Astoria handed Harry Malfoy’s cane. “You never know.” 

“Thanks.” Harry shoved the cane awkwardly into a bracket on the side of the broom and kicked off through the front door. 

The warm night air sang around him. The Cleansweep responded beautifully as he pulled it into an almost vertical rise away from the house towards the ribbon of green in the sky. A glance over his shoulder told him Ron was making a more leisurely ascent, arcing around the manor in a spiral that finally brought him to a stop thirty feet to Harry’s left as he hovered over the tracking spell’s trail. 

“Blue flecks,” Ron called.

Now that they were up close, they could both see tiny flashes of blue dancing amongst the green as the trail rippled. 

“What does that mean?” Hermione called over. 

“It means they’re not on brooms,” Ron told her. “They’ve got a flying car, like my dad’s.” 

Harry nodded in agreement. He aimed the broom east, along the path the spell had created, then ducked his head and felt the wind whip his hair as he set off in pursuit. 

***

Malfoy sat silently for the whole journey, and listened. No one spoke to him, but they did speak to each other. Horatio Shade had two friends in the car: his right-hand man, Ben Thornton, and Circe Osbourne. The other three were just hired wands: an Animagus called Mars; Davi, the meteomancer and Fisher, the Muggle-born driver. 

Shade was the only one who acknowledged his presence, and even then it was just a guarded look every once in a while. The rest of the time he was focussed on the book, every now and then calling directions to Fisher. 

Malfoy was trying to resist the urge to stretch in the uncomfortable seat when he realised they were circling. They looped around once, then twice. Shade had a few words with Thornton, then with Fisher, then called everyone to put on their seat belts. Malfoy grimaced, but said nothing. Then the car dropped like a stone. He bit down on an exclamation, forcing himself to keep his eyes open and his face relaxed. The fall ended as soon as it had begun, and then the car thumped onto the ground and came to a slow stop. 

Shade opened the door, looked outside, smiled, and clambered out. The rest of the group followed. Mars freed Malfoy from the chair, bound his hands and pushed him along in the centre of the group. Malfoy went without a word. 

He didn’t have much time to see where they were. There were streetlamps providing ugly yellow light, and the sound and taste of Muggle London surrounding him. Then the group crossed a road and he was pushed up a short flight of steps and through a small wooden door that Shade had charmed open. 

The library entrance must be here somewhere, and Malfoy had a split second to consider his options. He knew that his reluctant allies were nothing if not persistent and they’d somehow find a way here. He had no wand, no cane and was surrounded, ruling out the possibility of escape. But he did have a bottle of ink in the left hand pocket of his robes, and as Shade waved his wand and the group blinked as the Muggle lights switched on, he dropped his hands into the pocket and concealed the bottle between his fingers. No one seemed to notice the motion as they looked around, but he covered it by twisting his hands to try and look at his watch. 

Shade consulted the book in the renewed light and pointed. “This way.” 

They were in some kind of Muggle library, which seemed a fitting hiding place. Malfoy recognised the familiar smell of old books and tried not to think of school and Pansy and Vincent as they walked silently through the empty building. There were shelves, but they stopped at waist height, full of dull, everyday Muggle books. The walls were lined with folder after folder of periodicals. This, he realised, was simply a reading room. 

Shade led them past rows of tables, following the book’s directions until he reached another door. He unlocked it and they were faced with another staircase, but a blank wall in front of them. He checked the book again and then pressed it against the wall. The dull white paint shifted, stretched, and suddenly there was a door marked with the outline of the Black crest. 

“Open it, Mr Malfoy,” Shade said. 

“Why me?” 

“Because you’re the closest thing to have a Black we have,” Shade responded. “Now please open the door.” 

Malfoy stepped forward. He glanced at the ornate door handle and wondered how suspicious his ancestor had been. But he wouldn’t let them see him flinch, especially if it was the last thing he would ever do, so he grasped the handle and pulled the door open. 

Nothing happened, but Malfoy kept the relief from his face just as he’d held back the fear. He just nodded to the patch of darkness in front of them and said, “After you, Mr Shade.” 

***

They were five, perhaps ten, minutes behind Shade, and Harry had made the decision to keep it that way. He didn’t want to try and engage them in the air. So they followed the tracking spell for nearly an hour towards the orange glow on the horizon that marked London. It was past midnight, but the city was as bright as ever. Fortunately, nearly a thousand feet above the tallest buildings, no one noticed the faint trail in the sky and the two brooms following it. 

With Hyde Park beneath them, Ron called over, “I think we’re getting close!”

They arced over the chaos of Piccadilly, the bright Muggle signs blazing beneath them as they looped southwards over St James Park, and then north again over Pall Mall. Then Harry aimed his broom towards the ground and the three of them dropped into an empty square where ornate buildings surrounded the centrepiece of a small park. 

“Stay here,” Ron hissed to Hermione.

He and Harry scurried around the corner and cautiously approached the Muggle minibus. Ron slipped across the back of the square while Harry concealed himself behind one of the other parked cars. Then, on a signal, they sprang out of hiding into the light of the streetlamps, aiming their wands at the minibus. It was locked. Ron checked the left, Harry the right, and then looked at each other over the bonnet. 

“Clear.” 

While Ron went to get Hermione and the brooms, Harry tapped his wand against the side of the vehicle, casting an undetectable tracking charm. Then, as an afterthought, he scribbled down the registration number. 

“Harry!” Hermione called as she approached. “I know where we are. This is St James’ Square.” 

“So?”

She pointed to a building almost lost in the square’s corner. “That’s the London Library.” 

“Hide a library in a library,” Harry said. 

“How do you know it’s that one?” Ron asked.

“Because the London Library has been here almost unchanged since 1848. It’d be the perfect place.” 

“I suppose you’re a member,” Harry said.

Hermione shrugged. “No. My parents are, though. It’s where they met.” 

Ron grinned. “Aren’t you glad I insisted she come with us?”

Harry declined to comment. He simply turned and led the way towards the corner building. Lights were on inside, but there was no sign of movement. Harry sprang through the door with Ron covering him but was greeted by nothing but silence. 

“Which way, d’you reckon?” Ron asked. 

“You can’t search the whole library,” Hermione said. “It will take hours.” 

“Wait for them to come out?” Ron suggested.

Harry shook his head. “No. They might just be able to Apparate out. We have to find them before they get what they came for.” 

“I think Malfoy thought of that,” Ron said, pointing at the floor.

Hermione bent down and ran her fingers across the small stain on the carpet. “Ink, Harry.” 

“There’s more over there.”

“Clever bastard,” Ron muttered. 

They followed the trail of droplets through the issue hall, into the reading room, past the tables and the periodical shelves, to the stairs that led up to the first floor. The door was still unlocked. Harry kicked it open and swung to the left, Ron checking the right and the stairs. Then they both turned to the door that stood ajar next to them, a bottle of ink wedged in the gap to stop it from closing completely. 

“Bloody hell.”

“Alright,” Harry said. “I’ll go first. Hermione, you next. Ron, watch our backs.” 

“You sure, Harry?” Ron asked.

“That’s the way it has to be,” Harry told him, and stepped through the door. 

Darkness swallowed him. He blinked, not daring to light his wand, and took another cautious stepped forward. Something clanked beneath his feet. He reached a hand out and brushed cold, slippery metal. Then he realised there was light coming from somewhere beneath him. It was faint, but as his eyes got used to the dark it was enough to let him see that he was standing at the top of a narrow spiral staircase. He took a few cautious steps forward, and though the stairs creaked under his weight, they seemed to be holding firm. 

“Okay,” he whispered. “Follow me. Slowly. Quietly. No lights.” 

The ancient steps shivered under their weight as they descended. All three were on alert, wands raised, but they heard nothing from below them. The dim yellow light brightened, and by the time they reached the bottom it was just bright enough to see the Black crest engraved on the pair of heavy wooden doors that awaited them. 

And from beyond those doors came the familiar scent of dust and ancient parchment. It was a smell that took them back to the Restricted Section, only a hundred times more potent. Enchanted candles bobbed uncertainly up and down, only every third or fourth one lit, and those that were flickered in and out of life. But enough still burned to illuminate shelf after shelf of books, each one twice as tall as Ron, containing the legendary collection of Phineas Nigellus Black, all of it perfectly ordered and categorised, and all of it covered in a thick layer of dust. 

“Bloody hell,” Ron whispered. “I didn’t think he meant it.” 

“Ten thousand books,” Hermione breathed. 

“At least,” Harry added. “Even if his housekeeping charms are wearing off.” 

“So how do we find the ones we want?” Ron asked. “And how do we get there before Shade? There’s probably an index in that book he’s got.”

Harry shook his head. “I don’t think so. Look.”

He pointed down. The dust of the library’s floor had been disturbed. In the dim light, it was just possible to see two separate trails leading away between the shelves, one to the right and a slightly smaller one to the left. 

“They split up. They wouldn’t do that if they knew where they were going.”

“Harry, look.” 

Hermione indicated one of the shelves along the path of the smaller trail. Closer examination revealed that the dust had disturbed there too. Someone had drawn an untidy ‘M’ in the dust at about shoulder height. 

“Clever bastard,” Ron repeated. 

“Okay,” Harry said, “Ron, you go after Malfoy. Hermione, come with me. Maybe we can get ahead of Shade.”

“Why can’t you come with me?” Ron demanded.

“Because we don’t know what kind of magical protection Black or Voldemort put around the books,” Hermione told him calmly. “And Harry…”

“I know what his handwriting looks like,” Harry said. 

Ron nodded. “Okay. You get the books, I’ll get the ferret. Then, we arrest Shade and go for breakfast.” 

“On me, I suppose?” Harry muttered.

“Of course.” Hermione smiled. “I am eating for two, you know.” 

“And Ron’s always eaten for two,” Harry grumbled.

He handed over Malfoy’s wand and cane, then turned away, carefully following the larger trail. Hermione stayed where she was for just a moment, gave Ron a firm, silent look, which he returned. Then she followed Harry as Ron raised his wand and walked into the shadows between the shelves. 

***

In the darkness of his ancestor’s library, Draco Malfoy smiled. He leant casually against one of the support pillars with his hands crossed over his chest. Fisher stood in front of him, a wand pointed at his chest. Ben Thornton was examining the titles of the books in the shelf to his left, muttering to himself. 

Malfoy wasn’t surprised they were having problems. Phineas Black had not only neglected to include a proper map of the library in the book key, he had also organised the books using a system entirely of his own devising. As a result, the group had been forced to split up in order to find the section they wanted. It had taken Thornton and Fisher less than ten minutes to become completely lost. 

“You know you’re supposed to read that right to left,” he said, gesturing to the Arabic lettering on the spines of the books.

“Shut up!” Fisher snapped. 

“Perhaps I can help,” Malfoy went on. “My mother was a Black, after all. The sooner you get what you came for, the sooner I can go home and you two can get arrested for kidnapping.”

“We’ll be gone long before the Aurors get here,” Fisher told him.

Malfoy snorted. “Not if you’re still looking for the index at dawn. And anyway, it’s not just any Auror who’ll be looking for me.” He took a step closer to Fisher. “Didn’t your employer tell you what happened to Hawthorn and the others who were supposed to get the book from me at the Leaky Cauldron?” 

“Be quiet, Mr Malfoy,” Thornton hissed. 

Malfoy grinned. “So you haven’t told them who they were fighting at my house.”

“Who?” Fisher demanded. 

“It doesn’t matter!”

“Yes, it does!”

“Harry Potter,” Malfoy said. “The Chosen One himself. He killed the Dark Lord. Do you really think he’s going to be happy with what you’re doing?”

“Look,” Thornton interrupted, “even if it is Potter after us, there’s six of us and one of him.”

Malfoy shook his head, keeping his eyes on Fisher. “You don’t really think he’d come here without Weasley and Granger, do you? The Dark Lord himself couldn’t separate those three.” 

Fisher looked nervously back and forth between Malfoy and Thornton. The wand in his hand trembled. He opened his mouth to say something, and then his eyes flickered to his right. The shadows at the end of the row of shelves were flickering, and the dim light brightened. Thornton turned as well as a point of white light appeared around the corner. 

“It’s him!” Fisher exclaimed. “Stupefy!” 

The spell flashed down the aisle, but missed the light. Fisher ran towards it, yelling three more curses that drowned out Thornton’s shouts after him. He was half way there when the light suddenly went out, leaving all three of them blinking in the darkness. 

Fisher turned back towards Malfoy and Thornton, grinning. “I got him!” he exclaimed. 

A spell hit him square in the centre of the chest. He thudded backwards into the dust without a sound. 

“Malfoy, catch!”

Thornton flattened himself against the shelves as another hex went past him. As he did so, Malfoy reached up and snatched the thrown cane out of the air. He slid his grip down to the handle and swept it around as Thornton aimed his wand at the silhouette charging towards them. 

Just as Thornton cast his curse, the end of the cane drove his wand to the side, the spell slamming into the shelves. It bounced off, hit the other side of the passageway and continued to ricochet, flashing back and forth until it struck a wall and exploded into a shower of sparks. 

Their shadowy attacker had ducked to avoid the errant spell, but before Thornton could press the advantage, Malfoy brought the cane around again and drove it into the other man’s knee. Thornton lurched forward, steadied himself, and in the instant of indecision over who to attack, a Stunning spell knocked him backwards. 

“I never doubted you for a minute, Weasley,” Malfoy said as Ron stepped out of the shadows and picked up Thornton’s wand. 

“Of course you didn’t,” Ron responded, examining the fallen Fisher. “What was all that guff about Harry? You were talking like he was Merlin.” 

“Psychological warfare, Weasley,” Malfoy told him. “Make them afraid. Make them jump at shadows. For example, a lit wand being levitated as a diversion.”

Malfoy picked up his own wand, the source of the diversion, and straightened his robes. “What now?”

“This way.” Ron pointed back the way he had come. “I’ll get you out and then go after Harry and Hermione.”

Malfoy shook his head. “I’m staying with you. There’s still four of them.” 

“We can handle it,” Ron told him.

“I’m staying,” Malfoy hissed.

Ron gave him a long, uncertain look, and then shrugged. “Your funeral.”

They walked in silence for another minute, then Ron said, “Er… thanks. For blocking that spell.”

Malfoy kept his eyes straight ahead. “You’re… welcome.” 

“I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.”

“Agreed.”

Ron let out the faintest of chuckles, and then he froze. At this side, Malfoy stopped too. There was a whisper in the darkness, like a breeze rustling the pages of a book. 

“Weasley!” Malfoy exclaimed.

Ron twisted. At the far end of the passageway, the guttering candle dimmed, went out, and stayed that way. On instinct, he glanced the other way in time to see one of the candles behind them extinguish as well.

A second candle went out, and then a third. The two men stepped together, back to back, wands aimed into the advancing darkness. 

“Ron?” Malfoy whispered.

“Don’t panic, Draco,” Ron hissed. 

Then the last of the candles went out and the shadows swallowed them.


	7. Knowledge is Power

Seconds passed, long and agonisingly slow. Ron and Malfoy kept their backs pressed together, sweeping their wands back and forth.

“Anything?” Ron called over his shoulder.

“No. What’s happened?”

“How should I know?”

“What do we do, Weasley?”

Ron took a slow breath. “Don’t light your wand. We’ll keep together. You go forward, I’ll go backwards. Slowly. Got it?”

A few seconds passed, then Malfoy took his first step. Ron took one too, feeling a moment of separation and then Malfoy’s shoulders bumped awkwardly against his back. He did his best to ignore it, focussing on the darkness in front of him. It took them a few minutes to build up a rhythm, and at one point Ron stepped back too far and nearly knocked Malfoy over, but after that they started making better progress. As they did so, their eyes slowly grew used to the blackness, enabling them to at least see the shape of the shelves around them.

“Corner,” Malfoy muttered. “Left or right?”

“Umm… left.”

“You don’t know, do you? You have no idea where we are.”

“Why should I? I’m just trying to get us to the exit. Or Harry. Or Shade, even. If you think any of those might be to the right then say so.”

There was a moment of silence, then Malfoy hissed, “Left it is.”

But before they could rearrange themselves to make the turn, they heard a scream. It was a brief, harsh shriek, and before either of them could react, it came again, and a high, piercing wail echoed through the ancient shelves. Ron felt it cut through him, a sound summoned from his deepest memories and darkest dreams.

“Hermione!” he yelled.

He nearly ran straight over Malfoy, charging blindly into the darkness. The scream came again, and he barely saw the oncoming wall in time to stop, bouncing off it and throwing himself sideways down a new passageway.

Another scream and one more turn, and there she was. Hermione splayed out on the ground, half lit and half in shadow. And over her stood a tall figure, hooded and robed, pointed a wand like a talon down at Hermione’s swollen belly. The wand twirled, Hermione writhed and she screamed again.

“No!” Ron roared. “No!”

He tried to rush forward, but his body wouldn’t obey. He was frozen in place, drowning in rage and fear.

And then the details of the scene forced their way into his mind. Hermione’s stomach was far larger than it had been when he’d last seen her. Her face was somehow smoother, younger. The figure above her wore the mask of a Death Eater and the wand in its hand was unmistakably that of Bellatrix Lestrange.

“Not real,” he choked out.

His arm felt like lead as he raised it, trying desperately to focus on a memory of Hermione squirming the day he’d discovered how ticklish the backs of her knees were. An age passed, another scream crashed against him before he finally levelled his wand.

“Riddikulus!”

But nothing happened. His eyes locked with Hermione’s, willing her not to be real and his wife and child to be safe, and repeated the spell. But she was still there and still screaming.

And then Malfoy came around the corner. His wand was raised, but at there was another scream and his arm fell limp at his side. He took a step forward, then another, head shaking and eyes wide.

Then the cloaked figure shifted. The hood was pushed back and the mask fell away, and it was Draco Malfoy’s own grey eyes that looked out from behind it, his lips that twisted with cruel glee, his mouth that shouted _Crucio!_

Malfoy stared at his doppelganger’s cold eyes, and the wide, staring eyes of Hermione. “No…” he whispered.

“Do something!” Ron yelled.

The other Malfoy ignored him, aimed his wand down again. Hermione’s body twisted once more. But this time, she made no sound at all.

“Stop it,” Malfoy croaked.

The apparition glanced up, and Lucius Malfoy’s sneer crossed his face. He drew the wand back and stabbed it down, and this time Hermione let out a mournful moan.

“Stop it!” Malfoy shouted. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”

The other wand twisted and took aim once more.

“Expelliarmus!” Malfoy screamed.

A flash of light, a rush of wind, and the corridor went black. There was a thump in the darkness. Then, one by one, the candles flickered back into life. Ron found himself slumped against the wall, fighting to get his breathing under control. Malfoy was in the middle of the aisle on his knees, but before Ron could do much more than straighten up, the other man used his cane to force himself to his feet.

“What was that?” Ron breathed.

“A test,” Malfoy replied quietly, his eyes fixed his trembling hands.

“Of what? How long I could listen to my wife screaming in pain?”

Malfoy shook his head. “It wasn’t for you.”

“Malfoy…”

Malfoy turned and managed a sneer. “Come on, Weasley, do you really think if I wanted to talk about my feelings I’d choose you?”

“I know what it’s like to have someone else see your nightmares,” Ron responded.

“At the moment,” Malfoy said, “my only nightmare is that if we ever get out of here, you and Potter will think this means we should be friends now.”

***

“Hermione, are we lost?”

Hermione bit her lip. “I don’t understand the layout of this library. It doesn’t help that we don’t have a map, but however Black organised his books, it’s not like anything I’ve ever seen before, even at Hogwarts. I mean, look, we’ve gone straight from a section on Legilimency to one on goblin magic. And I think that’s the outer wall in front of us.”

“So we are lost then?”

“Yes.”

Harry sighed, leaning against the wall. “We never knew where we were going to begin with. This was a stupid idea. We should have just waited by the door until Shade came back. Now he’ll be gone by the time we even figure out where he is.”

“You don’t know that, Harry,” Hermione told him. “He might be just as lost as we are. There’s no guarantee that book contained a map of the library, and even if it did, it might not update itself so he still wouldn’t know where to look.”

“Thanks.” Harry smiled weakly. “I just wish I knew whether we were supposed to go right or left here. That’d be enough for me.”

“Then why don’t you just ask?”

They both twisted at the sound of the voice, wands raised, in time to see a man step out of the dim light. He was in his mid-twenties, pale, with well organised jet-black hair and brown eyes. He was smiling a smile that under other circumstances might well have been charming.

Harry took a step to the left, placing himself between Hermione and the apparition. “Hello, Tom,” he said.

“Tom?” Hermione exclaimed. “Tom who?”

“Tom Riddle.”

Tom’s smile didn’t waver. “Hello.”

“Harry, it can’t be. It isn’t him. It’s not real.”

“I know,” Harry muttered. “What do you want?”

“To answer your question,” Tom told him.

“You’ll just tell me whether we should be going left or right?” Harry asked.

Tom shook his head. “No, you have to ask first.”

There was a flicker in the air and another Tom, identical to the first, strolled out of the darkness. He wore the same smile and nodded politely to both Harry and Hermione.

“What is this?” Harry demanded.

“It’s a riddle,” Hermione whispered.

“Good choice of words,” said one of the Toms. “You can ask us one of us one question.”

“One of us will lie, and the other will tell the truth,” the other one said.

Harry turned to Hermione. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s a test, Harry,” Hermione told him.

“How do I know they’re telling the truth now?”

Hermione shrugged. “They have to be. Otherwise… it’s against the rules.”

“Who’s rules? Black’s?”

“It’s possible. Maybe the library knows you’re descended from him too and it’s trying to help you.”

Harry smiled grimly. “But only if I’m as sneaky as he was. So what’s the answer? Or rather, the question?”

Hermione eyed the twin Toms nervously. “It’s a logic puzzle. One of them lies, the other one doesn’t. There’s no way to know which. And we can’t just ask them.”

“But they will know if they’re telling the truth or not,” Harry said thoughtfully.

“Yes.” Hermione’s eyes widened. “Yes, they will! Now, Harry, it might not work for me so I need you to do exactly what I say.”

Thirty seconds later, Harry walked slowly up to the Tom on the right and said nervously, “Umm… if I asked the other Tom which way to go, what would he say?”

“Right.”

Harry nodded and looked back at Hermione with a combination of confusion and hope. “Well?”

“We go left,” Hermione told him.

She set off to the left without another word, Harry trailing after her. “Hermione, wait! What was that?”

“A variation of Knights and Knaves,” Hermione replied quietly. “If the Tom you asked was telling the truth, the other Tom would say right because he was lying so we should go left. But if you asked the liar, then he’d obviously say the opposite of the honest one so we should still go left.”

“Wow,” Harry said. “I’d forgotten how good you are.”

Hermione flushed. “It… wasn’t all me. Some of it was Sarah from Labyrinth. But you must never tell Ron about that.”

“Couldn’t if I wanted to,” Harry replied.

Harry was so busy trying to avoid Hermione’s glare that he almost missed the niche in the wall. She didn’t miss it either. There was a lot less dust on those shelves and the books themselves lacked the bespoke quality of the others.

“Do you think this is it?” Hermione whispered.

Harry examined the books. There were at least fifty of them, from heavy tomes to small notebooks. His fingers were inches from one of the spines when he hesitated. He moved along, past the unlabelled books until his eyes fell upon a familiar sight. Nothing stopped him from pulling a copy of Shade’s Penumbra from the shelves. He flipped it open to a page on wand-arm strikes and found that someone had crossed out where the book listed the target as the elbow and scribbled shoulder instead. The scribble was so familiar that Harry already knew what he’d find when he turned to the title page.

“I think we’re in the right place,” Harry murmured. “Voldemort was always a magpie. I think he stole this one.”

“From who?”

Harry gave her a dry smile. “The Half-Blood Prince.”

Hermione’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

Harry replaced the book. “How many of Madam Pince’s spells do you remember?”

Hermione gave him a cautious look and raised her wand, but before she could do anything, Harry shook his head. “No… I’ll do it. Just in case.”

“Libro Aperto,” Hermione told him.

Harry stepped in front of her, pointed at one of the blank books and repeated the spell. The book trembled and jerked backwards. Harry kept his focus and the book left the shelf and hung in the air in front of them. Harry made a dimly-remembered gesture and the pages turned. His eyes flickered over the neat, precise handwriting that he’d seen writing back to him out of a diary when he was twelve.

“It’s his,” he confirmed. “What’s he writing about?”

Hermione’s eyes were wide as the pages turned by themselves. “Harry… oh my god… this is about the Killing Curse. It’s the most comprehensive analysis I’ve ever seen. It’s… I can’t believe I’m saying this, but… it’s brilliant.”

“He was a genius,” Harry muttered, and flicked his wand to return the book to the shelf. “Let’s make sure no one else finds out how much.”

“Harry, wait!”

“What?”

“Black wouldn’t leave his books so vulnerable,” Hermione said. “We should check first.”

She waved her wand and a thin jet of well-remembered bluebell flames rushed from the tip towards the books. It struck, and there was a whoosh as the fire bounced off the parchment and shot backwards. Hermione frantically swiped her wand as Harry dragged her out of the way.

“Good thinking,” he muttered. “What now?”

“Well, we can’t carry them out, but there might be a way to turn off the spell using the book key. If we can get it.”

“I think we’re about to get our chance,” Harry muttered.

In the silence that followed, they both heard the footsteps echoing through the shelves, getting closer. They were coming from straight ahead. Harry glanced behind him; the alcove that Voldemort had created in the wall was less than ten metres deep and offered no cover at all. With Shade and his entourage ahead of him, the only escape was to the right. But for just a moment he was back in the Great Hall, locking his gaze with those red eyes, hearing the high voice in his ears. He gripped his wand tightly, stepped forward into the entrance of the niche, and stood his ground.

Hermione stood next to him. “Do you have a plan?”

“Try to talk them down. If I can’t, do exactly what I say.”

Then Shade rounded the corner. He was looking so intently at the book, he’d taken three steps before he glanced up. He froze, staring in shock. Circe almost walked into him. The two hired wands stepped out to fill the aisle, but kept their arms by their side.

“Harry Potter,” Shade said slowly.

“Auror Potter,” Harry corrected.

“How did he get here?” Circe hissed.

“Maybe this place recognises family,” Harry said. “Where’s Malfoy?”

Shade shrugged. “Don’t worry, Auror Potter, he’s being looked after. I don’t want anything to happen to him either. No one has to be hurt.”

“I was just going to say that,” Harry responded.

“There are four of us, Auror Potter.”

Davi nudged him. “Shade, you aren’t paying me enough to fight a pregnant war hero.”

“It won’t come to that,” Shade told him. “Be reasonable, Auror Potter. Stand aside.”

“No.”

“Please,” Shade said, his wand hand twitching.

Harry shook his head. “Hermione, it’s time for you to leave. This is Auror business. Find the exit and get the others here as soon as you can.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Harry,” Hermione replied, keeping the emotion from her face and out of her voice.

Without another word or so much as a glance at the quartet, she slipped behind him and disappeared into the shelves. No one watched her go. Harry kept his eyes on Shade.

“Please understand why I’m doing this,” Shade said. “Knowledge can’t be un-learned. But if we can analyse and understand everything He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named achieved, then when the next would-be Dark Lord rises, you and your Aurors can be prepared.”

Harry waited for him to finish, and chose his next words very carefully. “Horatio Claudius Shade, you and your accomplices are under arrest for kidnapping, conspiracy to commit blackmail and attempting to gain possession of articles covered by the Dark Arts Act.”

“What if we don’t want to go to Azkaban?” Mars asked.

“Then raise your wands and you’ll be charged with assaulting an Auror as well.”

“But not by you,” Davi said.

Circe looked up at Shade. “He’s just one Auror, Horatio.”

It was inevitable now. Harry’s eyes flickered over four hands holding four wands. He took half a step to the left. He slid one foot back a few inches, solidifying his stance. Spells and counter-spells danced through his mind. He thought of Ginny and James.

Shade opened his mouth to say something. Harry never found out what. He jerked his wand up and shouted, “Langlock!”

He’d been aiming for one of the two mercenaries, but it was Circe’s head that jerked back, and Davi and Mars had their wands up before he could cast again. Twin blasts of red light flashed towards him. He sprang to his side, dodging one and parried the other in time to send an Impediment Jinx back in return.

“Be careful of the books!” Shade shouted.

Davi and Mars ignored him, throwing two more jinxes at Harry. They smashed against a shield charm as Harry slid the other way, around the side of his own shield and threw back a hex. Mars’ next curse went straight through the shield and missed Harry by inches as he cast a counter-curse that met Davi’s next attack in an explosion of multi-coloured sparks.

Circe finally stopped trying to speak spells aloud, aimed at Harry and concentrated enough to fire a Stinging Jinx. The jinx collided with one of Mars’ spells in mid-air and the two changed course, forcing Harry to twist in between them, his own spell going wide.

A blast of wind from Davi hit Harry like an iron bar and knocked him off balance. As he went backwards, Shade finally raised his own wand and advanced down the aisle.

“Stupefy!” he yelled. “Stupefy! Stupefy! Stupefy!”

Harry parried desperately as the Stunners rained down on him, flashing back and forth as they bounced off the protected shelves. He had just enough of a window to cast a counter-curse to Mars’ next strike, but could do nothing but leap to the side from the next two attacks. The weight of spells was pushing him backwards into the confined space of the alcove. Harry threw up shield after shield, twisted, ducked and made as much use of the little space that remained to him.

But there was nowhere left to run, so he stopped trying to block and simply cast as fast as he could, taking advantage of the ricochets from behind him and throwing spell after spell at the attacking quartet. Explosions like fireworks roared between the shelves as spells collided, sparks filling the air and light arcing across the ground.

Then something struck Harry’s right knee. He barely had time to register it before his leg went completely numb and he flopped forward. Another spell went over his head as he forced his wand up, shouting a curse as he stumbled to the side.

There was another blast of light and this time Harry had time to see it coming. The spell slammed him back against the bookshelf, driving the air from his lungs. He managed to throw up a feeble shield, but, before he could move again, two spells smashed through it.

His wand arm suddenly felt like it weighed a thousand tonnes. It dropped to his side against his will and he fell forward, landing on his hands and knees.

“Finish him off!” Mars shouted.

The wizards raised their wands and the world went white. Harry flinched, trying to cover his eyes with his good arm to look at the silhouette that had appeared in front of him. Shade and the others were shouting from somewhere beyond the wall of light, all but drowning out the hissed healing spell that enabled Harry to feel his leg and arm again.

The light was fading and he staggered to his feet, blinking in astonishment at who he found at his side.

“I always knew you weren’t up to much, Potter,” Malfoy sneered.

“There are… four of them,” Harry hissed back.

Shade waved down his allies’ wands and stepped towards them. “What are you doing here, Mr Malfoy?”

Malfoy smiled coldly. He pointed his cane at Shade. “I’m here for you.”

“Be reasonable, Mr Malfoy…”

“No,” Malfoy said, tapping his cane on the floor. “You threatened me, you threatened my wife and you threatened my son. You want the Dark Lord’s tricks, but my family were his most loyal servants. Do you think and my father and aunt taught me nothing? Have your friends finish their business with Auror Potter. Yours is with me.”

Circe, still unable to speak, put her hand on Shade’s arm and shook her head frantically. Shade ignored her, taking another step forward.

“As you wish, Mr Malfoy.”

Shade put the book key down on one of the shelves behind him. Both he and Malfoy kept their wands at their sides as Shade walked towards Malfoy. He stepped past him and backed away along the other aisle.

“What are you doing, Malfoy?” Harry whispered.

Malfoy just gave him a curt nod, leant his cane against the selves and advanced a few steps towards Shade. He raised his wand in a precise, pure-blood salute. Shade raised his in return. The other three pairs of eyes flickered back and forth between Harry and the impending duel, not sure who to watch.

Which, Harry realised a split second later, was exactly what Ron had been waiting for.

Ron appeared out of one of the side passageways, and while the others were still turning to see what the noise was, he pointed at the book key and called, “Accio!”

And then he and it were gone, racing away between the shelves.

Shade opened his mouth to give an order, but before he could do so, both Harry and Malfoy struck.

A wave of liquid shadow rolled out of Malfoy’s wand and crashed against Shade’s guard. As it did so, Harry shouted the Knockback Jinx and slammed Davi into the shelves.

“The book!” Shade shouted from inside the turmoil.

Mars nodded and leapt backwards, transforming and scurrying after Ron. As he did so, Davi staggered to his feet as Circe desperately parried Harry’s next strikes. The pulse of wind roared down the aisle again, but this time Harry was ready for it and all that reached him was a gentle breeze. Then he struck back, and only a lucky sidestep allowed Circe to keep hold of her wand.

Behind him, Malfoy’s curtain of darkness rippled and washed backwards. Shade shouted something intelligible and a sword of blazing light stabbed down. Malfoy raised his own wand, calling forth a crystal lattice that the blade drove into, scattering it into a harmless rainbow. Shade had just enough time to give Malfoy an astonished look before a snake shot out of the end of Malfoy’s wand towards him. He yelled in shock, twisted his wand desperately, and the snake exploded into ash.

Harry arced his wand around, deflecting a weak jinx from Circe. A Stunning spell went past his shoulder, but he ignored it and concentrated on intercepting Davi’s next curse. He flinched at the flash but was still able to cast a hex through it, and when his vision cleared he saw Davi staring in horror at the spines growing out of his right arm.

Malfoy slipped sideways, but as he did so, Shade stabbed his wand downwards. A miniature tornado struck Malfoy’s mouth, forcing his lips open and pulling the air out of his lungs. His eyes widened as he fought to breathe, flailing with his wand until, in desperation, he fired a wind charm into his own face, snapping his head back as the tornado was blown apart from the inside. He gasped for breath, leaning on the cane to keep his feet. He looked into Shade’s uncertain eyes and managed to find the energy to sneer.

A hex from Circe gave Davi enough time to switch his wand to his left hand. His next twirl took so long that Harry had time to shoot a Body-Bind Curse at Circe before turning to Disarm Davi, who was just able to launch his hex and dodge.

Malfoy stepped forward and Shade retreated, but as he did so he brought his wand around and a jet of frozen wind shot towards Malfoy’s heart. Malfoy had no time to dodge or parry, so instead, he drove his wand into the oncoming gale and yelled a fire spell. The blast blew both of them backwards, hands over their faces and frost in their eyebrows. Malfoy recovered first, stabbing forward and sending shards of razor sharp bone towards Shade, first one, then two, then a dozen. Shade summoned a shield to block them, but the onslaught kept coming, battering against the barrier, forcing Shade back one step, then two as Malfoy advanced. He raised his wand in defiance as the charm collapsed, but before he could cast, Malfoy lunged and brought his wand flashing down.

“Sectumsempra!”

Shade screamed. Harry stopped mid-spell as he and the others turned towards the sound. Shade fell to his knees, clutching his right arm. Blood trickled between his fingers from three long cuts running from the back of his hand towards his elbow. He was staring in horror at his hand, which still held the stump of his wand; the rest of it had been torn apart by the spell and lay in fragments around him.

At the sight, Circle let out an incoherent gurgling scream and aimed her wand at Harry’s feet. He had just enough time to leap away before the Blasting Curse struck, but the explosion caught him in the air and threw him backwards. He landed painfully on his side, and just managed to get his wand up to intercept the Stunning spell that came through the cloud of smoke.

Suddenly, he felt heat on his face and a flare of light to his side made him jerk his head around. Malfoy was standing with his back to the fallen Shade, twirling his wand over his head. There was a whoosh and a tendril of flame erupted from the tip, but flickered and faded. Malfoy’s face twisted in concentration, and this time fire roared out of the wand and hung, twisting in the air above his head, rearing and hissing as it took the shape of an enormous burning serpent.

“Stop!” Shade croaked.

A rush of wind from Davi blew away the smoke cloud, and both he and Circe stared in horror at the fiery creature before turning their attention back to Harry. Harry let himself fall onto his back and cast a shield charm to block their hexes. Momentarily safe inside the bubble, he twisted his head around in time to see Malfoy hesitate, looking from him to the Fiendfyre snake.

“Do it, Draco!” Harry shouted.

The serpent roared and lunged. Circe and Davi threw themselves backwards as the flames rushed past them. Harry closed his eyes, feeling the heat through the shield as the creature reared up in front of the alcove, its burning eyes focussed on the life’s work of Lord Voldemort, and then plunged forward to devour it all.

***

Ron clutched the book key to his chest, hurrying through the shelves. He didn’t like leaving Harry with just Malfoy to back him up, but that was the plan they’d all agreed on. And Ron had to admit that Draco Malfoy could be very distracting if he wanted to.

He turned left, right and left again and nearly ran into Hermione, who was concealed next to a pillar between two collections of books in German. Her wand was half up, but he stuck his tongue out at her and she relaxed. He handed her the book.

“How’s Harry?” she whispered.

“Better than I’d be, fighting four people at once,” Ron replied. Hermione’s eyes widened and he went on, “Malfoy’s got him back on his feet.”

“You should help them,” she said.

Ron shook his head. “Harry can look after himself. The quicker you turn off that spell, the quicker I can go rescue him anyway.”

“Just be careful,” Hermione told him. “One of them is an Animagus. A ferret, I think.”

Ron raised his wand. “I know how to deal with ferrets.”

He slipped away, back towards the crash and spark of colliding spells, and pressed his back against the shelves. Footsteps. He took one slow pace forward. The steps came again.

Another few feet and he was at a junction. The passage ahead was empty, but the steps were getting louder in the shadows. A wave of his wand created a small quicksilver mirror that hung in the air in front of him. Ron very slowly tilted it until he could see in the other direction and smiled. There was a blond man creeping slowly between the shelves towards him, but he wasn’t looking carefully enough to see the glint of candlelight on the mirror.

Ron waited until he glanced up towards one of the flickering candles and then sprang around the corner and aimed his wand.

But he’d underestimated his opponent. The man leapt back at the noise, flattening himself against the ground as the spell went over his head and sparked away into the darkness. For an instant, his face distorted and before Ron could adjust his aim, there was a rodent scrambling across the library floor towards one of the side passages.

“Damn.”

He retreated a few steps, but was unwilling to lead the Animagus back towards Hermione. He stood his ground with his back against the shelves, glancing back and forth. He heard a rushing clatter across the floor and turned towards the sound just in time to see Mars appear out of nowhere and drive his fist into Ron’s jaw.

Ron saw stars, his head cracking against the wood, swinging his wand around wildly, but by the time his vision cleared, the man had vanished again.

“Bastard,” he hissed.

There was another rush, from the same side as before. Ron leaned back, away from the expected blow, bringing his wand up at the same time. The Stunning spell smashed against his shield and he sent back a jinx in return. It missed, and he narrowly avoided it being reflected back at him as Mars disappeared.

Ron very slowly relocated, edging back towards Hermione. He thought he could hear her voice but wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, he was listening too intently for Mars to decide either way.

He heard a footstep at a junction and spun, casting as he went. Mars was knocked backwards trying to parry and Ron pressed his advantage, hitting him again and again. The third spell took Mars’ wand out of his hand, and there was nothing for the Animagus to do but throw himself back the way he had come, dodging the fourth attack as he transformed.

Ron jerked his head around. Mars’ wand had clattered away down the aisle and he could just see the shape of it in a patch of shadow. Ron smiled and took a first step towards the wand. He held his own wand at his waist, gripping it carefully to keep it pointed straight ahead.

There was a faint sound in the darkness. He ignored it and took two more careful steps. He heard another noise and took another step. He could see the wand clearly now. Around him, the shadows shifted.

Two feet from the wand. One more step, and Ron heard a scrape on the ground behind him. His wand was still pointing directly ahead. He cast a Body-Bind Curse and threw himself flat.

Mars was half a step behind him, raising his hand to deliver a blow to Ron’s neck. He lost his balance as his strike went wide and before he could recover, the curse hit the shelves in front of him, rebounded over Ron’s prone body struck him in the chest. Mars went completely rigid, fell forward and smashed into the floor, all without making a sound.

Ron scrambled to his feet. He rolled the frozen wizard onto his back and picked up the fallen wand. Mars couldn’t even move enough to do anything about the blood trickling from his broken nose.

Ron grinned down at him. “Don’t go anywhere. Episky.”

***

“It’s not working, Potter!” Malfoy yelled.

Harry could feel the heat on his face as he stumbled to Malfoy’s side. In front of them, the Fiendfyre writhed in the alcove, so far only held there by the force of Malfoy’s will. It crashed against the bookcases, tore at the walls and licked between the shelves, but Black’s protective enchantments were even stronger than the cursed flames. No matter how the inferno raged, it couldn’t touch Voldemort’s books.

“Keep it up!” he called back. “Hermione’s never let me down yet.”

Above the roar of the flames, Harry heard a crash behind him. Circe scrambled to her feet and aimed her wand at Malfoy’s back, but before she could strike, Davi grabbed her arm and forced it down.

“Are you crazy?” he exclaimed. “Curse him and we’ll all burn!”

Circe tried to force him away, and as they struggled, Harry came to a decision and pivoted. The other two were too distracted by the fire to see him move until it was too late. They couldn’t get their guards up as Harry stabbed his wand forward.

“Confuto Pugnum!”

There was a flash like a bolt of lightning. Both Circe and Davi were thrown backwards down the aisle. They landed hard and didn’t get up. Their wands clattered to the floor at Harry’s feet.

He left them there, turning back to Malfoy just as the other man glanced over his shoulder. “Shade’s gone!”

“Forget about him!” Harry shouted. “We’ll get him later!”

Malfoy, silhouetted against the flames, sneered. “Forgive me if I don’t take the word of an Auror. You have what you want. I’m going to make sure he doesn’t get away.”

And then, to Harry’s horror, he lowered his wand. The serpent in the alcove stopped struggling and he swore the burning eyes turned to meet his own. Then it burst forward and there was nothing for Harry to do but jump directly in front of it.

“Protego Maxima!”

An invisible wall sprang up at the entrance to the alcove, just as the snake crashed into it. The charm shivered and Harry hissed the incantation again. The serpent roared, burning almost white, and struck again. This time, Harry felt the impact all the way up his arm, and a second blow forced him back a step.

He had no choice but come forward again. If he let go, the fire would consume every living thing in the library. Harry gritted his teeth, clung to his wand and stared into the flames.

“Protego Maxima… Protego Maxima… Protego Maxima…”

***

Hermione knelt in the middle of one of the aisles surrounded by books on protection spells. The subject matter provided her little comfort as she fought to understand Phineas Black’s book key.

A few moments of flicking through the pages in the dim light and she understood why the library had been so hard to navigate. The book didn’t contain a map so much as an index, innumerable pages of book titles and authors, listed by subject in a sequence only Black himself had understood. On another day, Hermione would have happily lost herself in the ancient shelves seeking copies of texts which had supposedly vanished, but there was no time for that.

It was only on her second trip through the key that she realised that she’d been missing the obvious. All of the pages were dedicated to the index except for the pair at the exact centre of the book. They were blank. Hermione pressed her wand against the parchment and murmured a revealing spell. Nothing. She tried three more before concluding that Black would never have made it so easy.

“Toujours pur,” she muttered.

The pages remained resolutely blank. Hermione tried the English translation.

“Didn’t think it’d be that easy, did you?”

She stiffened, but forced herself to keep her eyes on the book. There was no mistaking the clear, mocking voice whispering in her ear.

The voice spoke again, and she could feel the breath on her neck. “If you think an upstart Mudblood like you could match wits with Phineas Nigellus Black, you’re a stupider girl than I thought.”

Hermione didn’t speak. She didn’t look up. She made no acknowledgement of the voice. She focussed on the book in front of her and the sound of spells in the distance. Ron and Harry needed her.

“No use pretending I’m not here. I am here. I’ll never go away. I’ll be in your dreams till the day you die.”

Hermione flinched. Against her will, her hand brushed the scar on her neck.

“That’s right. You do remember me.”

The effort of focussing made Hermione shake. She couldn’t concentrate on the book in front of her, all she could see was the face she knew would be there if she just looked up. Her other hand clutched her stomach protectively as she fought the urge to stand and just run.

“Do you really think carrying a pure-blood’s child can protect you from me?”

Hermione felt something inside her break. But what was on the other side of the dam wasn’t terror. She raised her head and stared into the hooded eyes.

“Bellatrix Lestrange is dead. You aren’t her.”

The vision that looked like Bellatrix let out a shrieking laugh. “What makes you think that means you’re safe?”

Hermione looked down again. She unfolded the list of possible keys and laid it down next to the book.

“So, you’re not afraid for yourself are you? You put your life and your little half-blood embryo on the line for your blood traitor husband and the Boy Who Lived. It’s what you’ve always done isn’t it? That’s not very clever though. You know your luck’s going to run out one day.”

“It’s not luck,” Hermione hissed, almost against her will.

“Oh, that’s right. You have to be the best at everything because otherwise who’ll tell your precious boys what they need to stay alive?”

There was a rustle of clothing, and Bellatrix sat down opposite her. Hermione looked up from the book, met her gaze, and waited.

“I should have killed you,” Bellatrix said conversationally. “I killed eight people in the battle. Did you know that? I even killed my sister’s daughter. I’m not afraid to kill family. I should have killed you and taken my wand back. Or I should have cut your throat and spilled your filthy blood all over Cissy’s floor before you ever laid your wreched fingers on it! Potter’s face would have been a sight!”

Hermione tilted her head back, showing the apparition her scar. “This was the best you could do. One day, my child will ask how I got it and I’ll tell them it doesn’t matter. But when they’re old enough, I’ll tell them about you.”

Bellatrix leaned forward, eyes shining. “And what will you say?”

“I’ll say…” Hermione hesitated, and then she thought of her husband and smiled. “I’ll say you’re dead because you fucked with the wrong woman’s daughter.”

Bellatrix sprang to her feet. “You shouldn’t have that child! You shouldn’t have survived the war! You’d have died in the Department of Mysteries if Antonin hadn’t missed! In fact…” she leaned close over Hermione and hissed, “You never should have made it out of that bathroom. You should have been just like Myrtle. Poor Hermione Granger, dying all alone because she didn’t have any friends.”

This time, Hermione did shake, but the crying little girl felt almost like a different person now. She closed her eyes, remembering her wedding and the friends who were close enough to be family telling her how beautiful and special she was. But Bellatrix went on.

“All you should have been able to look forward to is that when Ron forgot about you and married someone who’d listen to the World Cup with him, he might have named his daughter after that girl at school who he used to like when she wasn’t talking so much.”

Hermione’s eyes snapped open. She looked up at Bellatrix and opened her mouth to ask if that was the best she could do. But she never spoke. Instead, she found herself remembering Harry, her best friend beaming with joy, tears fogging his glasses as he introduced them to his son. And then, so clear she could almost touch it, the Black family tree hung before her eyes.

“Thank you.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them, Bellatrix was gone. She scrambled to her feet, seizing the book and aiming her wand at the centre pages.

Which was when she heard another sound in the darkness. She turned, half expecting it to be Bellatrix, but it was a different shadow that swept down at her. A blow caught her hard across the face and she thudded heavily into the bookcase. Her head spun and before it could clear, she felt her wand being wrenched from her hand, leaving something sticky on her palm.

Then there was a hand in her hair, dragging her backwards as the point of her own wand stabbed into the small of her back.

“I can’t let you do that, Madam Weasley,” Shade hissed.

Hermione jerked her head around, ignoring the pain. Shade’s eyes were wide, his breathing was shallow and his skin was abnormally pale. A sharp, metallic smell hung in the air and part of Hermione’s mind realised he must be bleeding quite badly.

“This is a very, very bad idea,” Hermione said. “You had better hope Harry gets to you before Ron does.”

The grip on her hair tightened. “For your sake, they should be reasonable.”

Then Ron charged around the corner. He didn’t even pause at the sight of Shade holding Hermione. His wand was levelled in the time it took Hermione to blink.

His voice was frighteningly calm. “Let her go.”

“I don’t want to hurt her, Auror Weasley,” Shade responded. “You’re going to let me out of the library and let me Apparate away with the key.”

Ron advanced a few steps. “No, I’m not.”

“Mr Shade,” Hermione said, “let me go and put down your wand. Please. You don’t want to get hurt.”

Shade shook his head. “I don’t know of a single spell that can hit me without going through you and your child first.” He raised his head. “Auror Weasley, all I want is to leave. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“Good,” Ron hissed, taking a step closer. “If you hurt her, there isn’t a place on earth you’ll be able to hide from me.”

Shade shuffled backwards, trying to keep his grip on Hermione. “Think of your family, Auror Weasley.”

“Ron…” Hermione whispered. His eyes snapped to meet hers. “I trust you.”

“Hermione…”

“Drop your wand!” Shade shouted. “Now!”

Ron’s eyes flickered across the aisle. The ricochet trick wouldn’t work this time. His aim wasn’t good enough to be sure of missing Hermione. He wracked his brain for a spell – any spell – he could use to take out Shade before he could cast one of his own.

He let his hand fall to his side.

Hermione took a deep breath. Ignoring Shade’s grip on her hair, she fixed Ron with a furious glare.

“Auror Weasley!” she snapped. “Do your job!”

Shade’s eyes widened, and Ron began to smile. It was a smile that for years had told anyone looking at him over a chessboard that they were two moves away from a checkmate. He was smiling that smile because he’d thought of a spell Shade wouldn’t expect. A spell no one ever expected.

He took a breath, and the smile lost its harsh edge and became almost a grin. The rage melted away. He didn’t need it anymore. He filled his mind with every beautiful memory of his wife, from the hair on the train to the test that told her she was going to be a mother.

Then he raised his wand, pointed it at Hermione’s heart and shouted, “Avada Kedavra!”


	8. The Morning After

Shade recoiled. The words ingrained so deeply into every wizard’s mind allowed no other response. He let go of Hermione, fleeing from the Unforgivable spell.

Except there was no bolt of green lightning. No rush of wind. No Killing Curse.

Hermione was twisting before he even relaxed his hold on her hair. She tore her wand from his blood-slicked right hand, hugging it close to her chest. And then she kicked him as hard as she could between the legs.

Shade’s world exploded into light and pain. He let out a faint gurgling noise and crashed to the floor, curling up into a ball.

Hermione turned her back on him, just in time to be swept into Ron’s arms, pulled tight against him as they felt their hearts thudding together.

“I’m sorry,” Ron whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she murmured against his neck. “I never doubted you.”

Ron reluctantly let her slip back to the ground. As she did so, he saw the blood on her wand hand and his eyes widened.

“It’s Shade’s,” she told him firmly. “Now… I have to help Harry.”

As she turned away to scan for the fallen book, Ron walked over to Shade. The other man slowly uncurled, and one of the world’s foremost experts on the Dark Arts stared up at Ron with confusion in his eyes and a half-formed question on his lips.

“You have to mean it, you bastard,” Ron snarled. “Stupefy!”

Hermione finally reached the fallen book and scooped it up. She frantically flicked through it until she found the blank centre. Then she pressed her wand to the ancient paper and whispered a name.

The page stayed blank.

“I don’t understand,” she muttered.

“What is it?” Ron called over his shoulder.

“It’s not working!” she replied. “But that has to be it! Bellatrix kept talking about her relatives and that I should have just have been the name of someone else’s child.”

“Bellatrix?”

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is family. It’s the most important thing to the Blacks. And Phineas Black had a brother who meant enough that he named his son after him.”

“You mean…”

“Yes! But it isn’t working!” She stopped, her eyes going wide. “Oh, I’ve been so stupid!”

She dropped her wand and frantically rummaged in her robes. The portable ink well took only a moment to find but a moment of desperate searching and she still couldn’t find her quill.

Then she realised Ron was holding one under her nose.

He gave her and awkward smile. She beamed back at him, then dropped to her knees over the book and carefully wrote eleven letters on the blank page: Sirius Black.

The letters stayed still for just a moment, and then they started to change. The ink ran, losing the pattern of Hermione’s small, careful script and threading out across the page. Lines reached out, turned at right angles, split and then tailed off. Hermione watched, mesmerised, as a map of the library of Phineas Nigellus Black drew itself before her eyes.

Finally, it was complete, but she had no time to examine the carefully drawn key and wonder at the wisdom it must contain. The drawing wasn’t entirely monochrome; there was a single section, shaped as though someone had taken a bite from the library’s outer wall, where the outline was pulsing from black to red. She wondered what Harry and Malfoy were doing to create that effect, then dismissed it as irrelevant. Hoping that the tests were finally over, she grabbed her wand and pressed it against the flickering outline.

“Finite Incantatum!”

***

“Protego… Maxima… Protego… Maxima… Protego… Maxima…”

The spell was Harry’s lifeline as the fire roared in his ears and the heat stung his eyes. It was getting hotter and he knew it. But soon Hermione would break the protective spells, and then she and Ron would arrive to back him up. He clung to that thought.

He just had to hang on for a little bit longer. Without taking his eyes from the Fiendfyre, he slowly bent his knees, groping at the ground with his left hand. Finally, his fingers brushed one of the fallen wands. He grasped the handle and straightened up.

For a split-second, he allowed his concentration to drift enough to cast with the borrowed wand. “Deflammo!”

The serpent reeled back, and then surged forward again. Harry barely cast a shield in time to prevent it from swallowing him. He poured all his power into the charm, wondering if it was possible to burn himself out, forcing the cursed flames back into the alcove.

“Auguamenti!”

A high pressure jet of water burst from the other wand. It struck the snake between the eyes and exploded into a cloud of steam that rushed back over Harry. He squeezed his eyes shut, whimpering at the impact of the vapour on his bare skin.

“Malfoy!” he shouted, wondering if his voice was lost in the sound of the fire. “I need your help!”

He thought he might have heard footsteps over his own muttered incantations. Or it might have been a trick of the flames. Harry was exhausted, his mouth was dry, he could barely keep his arm moving, his whole body ached and his mind was filling with fog.

The serpent reared back once more and this time he knew the blow would be more than he could bear.

“Protego Infernus!” Malfoy shouted, pointing his wand over Harry’s shoulder.

The snake struck the new barrier and slid across it like it was made of ice. It recoiled, rolling across the ceiling, and momentarily lost cohesion and dissolved into a shapeless ball of fire.

“Where… did you learn that one?” Harry gasped.

“My aunt,” Malfoy muttered.

The inferno in the alcove condensed once again, contracting back into the serpentine shape. The blazing eyes fixed on Harry and Malfoy as they steadied their wands.

Then, above the roar, they heard a shrill voice that seemed to come from very far away, shouting, “Finite Incantatum!”

There was a rush of wind, and a flicker of multi-coloured light inside the alcove. And then the books burst into flame.

The serpent roared with triumph and fire expanded from its sides like dragon wings. They swept over the shelves and everything on them as the flames grew brighter and brighter, hotter and hotter. They swallowed the parchment of the pages, the leather of the covers and even the wood of the shelves until they were searing across the stone walls themselves.

“Good riddance,” Malfoy hissed.

“What now?” Harry asked.

Malfoy cleared his throat. “When I say, drop your shield charm and step back. I’ll do the rest.”

“Are you sure?”

“Trust me, Potter.”

Harry nodded. “Okay. On the count of three.”

“One… two… three…”

Harry sliced his wand down and sprang back as Malfoy did the same. He raised it again, ready to throw up a protection spell if anything went wrong.

The Fiendfyre exploded out of the alcove and swept down on Malfoy. Malfoy’s grey eyes didn’t even flicker. He drove his wand upwards into the burning jaws and the serpent seemed to stretch as it plunged into the tip the wand, flames swallowed by the polished wood. The long tail thrashed once, and then Malfoy stood alone, letting his wand fall to his side.

Harry flicked his wand and a cooling breeze ruffled his hair. It felt like balm on his battered skin.

“Why’d you come back?” he asked.

Malfoy shrugged. “I dislike being indebted to anyone, Potter. Especially you.”

“Fair enough,” Harry said.

His legs finally surrendered, and Harry flopped down, resting his back against the still-warm wall. He could barely keep his eyes open, and it took him three goes to drag his battered watch from his robes. It was two in the morning.

Malfoy sat cross-legged next to him. “You know, Potter, I think I’m going to choose not to complain to the Chief Auror about being kidnapped while in your care.”

Harry didn’t open his eyes. “Thank you, Malfoy. I think I’m going to choose not to arrest you for using excessive force during a duel either.”

“Harry? You okay, mate?”

Malfoy scrambled to his feet, readying his wand, as Ron and Hermione emerged from the half-darkness. They walked side by side, his arm around her waist, her leaning slightly against him. Harry straightened for a moment, then relaxed.

“It’s them, Malfoy,” he said.

“How do you know?”

“No one could fake the way they look at each other.”

Malfoy sneered. “My sympathies, Potter. I don’t know how you’ve put up with it all these years.”

“Him?” Ron responded. “What about me having to watch him follow my little sister around with his tongue hanging out?”

“Your sister, Weasley, is not that little.”

Ron’s expression hardened, but before he could act, Hermione stepped in front of him. “We got Shade. Ron Stunned him, but he needs a Healer. Something happened to his arm.”

Malfoy smiled. Harry ignored it and looked around. “Two more here. What about the others?”

“The Animagus is over there in a Body-Bind,” Ron told him. “I took care of the two looking after Malfoy. They might have woken up by now but I’ve got their wands.”

Harry nodded. “They can wait, then.” He dragged himself to his feet. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do…”

Hermione and Malfoy stayed beside the alcove while Harry and Ron located Mars and Shade. Then they took a prisoner each, levitating their unconscious bodies in front of them as they followed Hermione’s directions towards the library’s entrance. When they finally found themselves back in St James’ Square, Hermione cast Muggle-repelling wards while Ron bound the prisoners and Harry sent an invisible signal to the Auror office. A brief excursion into the square revealed that Fisher’s minibus had disappeared, but all Harry had the energy to do was shrug.

They picked a spot at the top of the London Library’s steps and settled down to wait. To keep everyone awake, Harry asked Ron what had happened when he went after Malfoy, and they spent the next ten minutes swapping stories of the night’s adventures. Some editing occurred; Ron and Malfoy left out their vision of Hermione, and Harry and Hermione didn’t mention asking Tom Riddle for directions.

However, when Ron awkwardly explained how he’d stopped Shade using Hermione as a shield, Malfoy started laughing.

“Think that’s funny?” Ron demanded.

“Are you telling me that you tricked Shade by deliberately misfiring the Killing Curse at your pregnant wife?”

“Yeah…”

Malfoy smiled. “Weasley, I’ve been underestimating you all these years. You might have made a Slytherin after all.”

“Thanks, Malfoy.”

Any response Malfoy could have given was interrupted by the rustle of clothing behind them. The four prisoners were awake and silently struggling against their bonds. They stopped as soon as the Aurors turned.

“Do you want to do the honours, Harry?” Ron asked.

Harry stood up, waited until he had the group’s complete attention and calmly recited, “You do not have to say anything, but it may harm you defence if you fail to mention when questioned – ”

“Fuck you, Potter,”

“ – anything you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”

This time, the quartet stayed silent. Harry shrugged and turned away, just in time to hear a familiar sound from the road. Rob McElroy appeared, facing in the wrong direction. He looked from right to left, then spun around, smiled and strolled up the steps towards them.

“Morning, Harry.”

“Yes, Rob. It is.”

“Everyone’s been wondering where you got to,” McElroy said. “What happened?”

“Long story, Sleepless,” Ron replied.

“Thought so.” McElroy gestured to their prisoners. “That everyone?”

Harry shook his head. “There’s two more. I think they got away in a flying car. Here’s the details, get them to the Flying Squad.”

“Right, Harry. Anything else?”

Harry blinked heavily. “There’s a whole library full of books on the Dark Arts under this building. I’ll need four Aurors to watch it. Two here, two at the doorway inside. I’ll show them where it is. But… tell them not to go in till we get backup in the morning.”

“Tell them to expect someone from the DMLE archives _after_ she gets a good night’s sleep,” Ron added.

“And we’ll need a car to get Madam Weasley to a floo,” Harry said. “Tell Robards that Ron and I will come in before lunch and make a full report. Until then, tell him to tell the Minister it’s nothing but good news.”

McElroy nodded. “Anything else?”

“Just get back here as fast as you can,” Ron replied. “Take this lot into custody. They’ve been cautioned, just get them a Healer and charge them under the Dark Arts Act.”

McElroy nodded. “Five minutes.”

He turned on the spot and vanished. Harry and Ron looked over their shoulders at the prisoners. Anger and defiance had melted away to leave fear and despair.

“What happens now?” Malfoy asked.

Harry shrugged. “They’ll be charged, tried and probably sent to Azkaban. I’m sure Ventura will testify. Robards and the Minister will both want it kept quiet.”

“It won’t make the press,” Malfoy said firmly. “Nott will make sure of that.”

“Thank you, Malfoy,” Hermione murmured sleepily.

Malfoy shook his head. “This isn’t for your sake. My wife and I have better things to do than spend the next month trying to hex journalists off our lawn. Now may I please go home?”

“Okay,” Harry told him. “Just come in tomorrow afternoon to make a statement. Quietly.”

“If you insist.” Malfoy stood up. “Auror Potter, Auror Weasley, Madam Weasley. Goodnight.”

And then he was gone.

Ron snorted. “For a second there, I thought he was going to say thank you. Must be more tired than I thought.”

There was a sequence of pops from the square and McElroy reappeared, along with the rest of the office night watch. Harry handed over the book key and his collection of confiscated wands, then showed them the entrance to Black’s library while Ron and Hermione gave them a quick briefing. They regrouped outside in time to hear a rumbling from overhead as a red Mark 2 Jaguar dropped out of the night sky and landed in the road. While Harry was trying to remember where he’d seen it before, Danny Yang, second in command of the Flying Squad, opened the creaking driver’s door and clambered out.

“Cab for Madam Weasley?” he called.

“Danny, where did you get that car from?” Ron asked.

Yang grinned. “Requisitioned it, Auror Weasley. From the head of the Muggle Protection Division. Somehow, I don’t think he’ll mind.”

Harry snorted. “No, I don’t think he will.”

“Oh, and before I forget,” Yang went on, “Ed says that if he hasn’t found the getaway car by breakfast he’ll… what was it...? let you off that money you still owe him from the last inter-office Quidditch match.”

“Tell him I gave up gambling,” Harry responded. “And Ed can have his money if he’s brave enough to come to the office and ask for it.”

“Oh, for goodness sake,” Hermione muttered.

“Harry, you can settle your debts on your own time,” Ron said. “Come on, Danny.”

Yang nodded, opening the passenger door and pulling the front seat forward so Hermione could get in.

“Now, Ron,” she began, “you mustn’t let me sleep in tomorrow. I’ll have the entire department to organise. There are so many books in there it’ll take us months to catalogue and I’ll have to have it finished before I go on maternity leave…”

Ron looked at Harry over Hermione’s head. Harry just smiled back. Then Ron clambered into the car beside her.

“Can I drop you anywhere, Auror Potter?” Yang asked.

Harry shook his head. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine. I’ll see you both tomorrow. If Ginny doesn’t kill me for being out so late.”

“I’m sure she’ll understand,” Hermione said.

“As long as you leave out the four-on-one duel.” Ron grinned. “And Malfoy nearly setting you on fire.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Goodnight, Harry.”

“Yeah. Good work, mate.”

“Couldn’t have done it without you two,” Harry told them.

He thumped twice on the roof of the car and stepped back. The Jaguar burbled and rose into the sky. Harry stood in the street, watching until it had disappeared over the rooftops. Then, with a last wave to the Aurors at the library doors, he pictured his wife, his son and his home, turned on the spot and Apparated away.

**The End**


End file.
